Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a prominent topic in K-12 education recently. However, pedagogical design has remained a major challenge, especially among young learners. Guided by the Zone of Proximal Development theory and AI education research literature, this design-based study proposes an analogy-based pedagogical approach to…

One of the aspects of programming that novices often struggle with is the understanding of abstract concepts, such as variables, loops, expressions, and especially Boolean operations. This paper aims to explore the effects of programming tools with different degrees of embodiment on learning Boolean operations in elementary school. To this end, 67…

With rising societal interest in the subject areas of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM), a micro:bit robotics course with an online group study (OGS) system was designed to foster student learning anytime and anywhere. OGS enables the development of a learning environment that combines real-world and digital-world…

Background and Context: In today's increasingly digital world, it is critical that all students learn to think computationally from an early age. Assessments of Computational Thinking (CT) are essential for capturing information about student learning and challenges. When programming is used as a vehicle to foster CT skills, assessment of CT…

Moving among levels of abstraction is an important skill in mathematics and computer science, and students show similar difficulties when applying abstraction in each discipline. While computer science educators have examined ways to explicitly teach students how to consciously navigate levels of abstraction, these ideas have not been explored in…

Computational thinking aims to outline fundamental skills from computer science that everyone should learn. As currently defined, with help from the National Science Foundation (NSF), these skills include problem formulation, logically organizing data, automating solutions through algorithmic thinking, and representing data through abstraction.…