Recently, creativity has been acknowledged for its importance in improving computer science learning and attitudes. However, very little is known about how to integrate creativity in preservice teacher computing education. Toward this end, we developed a creativity-enhancement intervention in an online Creative Computing instructional module to…

The integration of visual programming in early formal education has been found to promote computational thinking of students. Teachers' intuitive perspectives about optimal learning processes -- "folk psychology" -- impact their perspectives about teaching "folk pedagogy" and play a significant role in integrating educational…

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the introduction of programming in teacher education and professional development, highlighting its importance for the development of so-called computational thinking. This study explored primary education teachers' participation in programming practices. By focusing on their views of creating…

The promotion and implementation of programming education in primary and secondary schools in the intelligent era are associated with high-quality information technology (IT) teachers who possess programming literacy. IT teachers' programming literacy requires a scientific and reasonable index system for quantitative evaluation. On the basis of…

As block-based visual programming platform such as Scratch become more accessible and supportive to children's programming learning, the demand on understanding a trajectory of children's computational thinking development through programming from their early ages increases rapidly in recent years. To explore the developmental process of…

Background: Integrating programming in K-12 curriculum has become a global consensus. Teachers are central figures in programming instruction. But the majority of current research focuses on teachers' external teaching behaviours and less on teachers' attitudes towards programming. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to validate the K-12…

This study focuses on students' self-assessment during their learning process related to computer programming concepts, taking into account challenges and obstacles both teachers and students face, with the aim to contribute to the development of guiding principles and practices and enhance the teaching process of computer programming in primary…

This review article focuses on the teaching of computer programming in primary school mathematics, as reported by 37 empirical studies. Our findings show that a variety of research methods are used, which often combine qualitative and quantitative approaches. Furthermore, we found the focus of attention to vary from emphasis on the teacher and the…

Research indicates that understanding levels of abstraction (LOA) and being able to move between the levels is essential to programming success. For K-5 contexts LOA levels have been named: problem, design, code and running the code. In a qualitative exploratory study, five K-5 teachers were interviewed on their uses of LOA, particularly the…

Background & Context: Many efforts have been dedicated to building computer science (CS) teacher capacity through offering professional development (PD) programs. Previous reviews indicated the need to offer more continual support for teachers. Recent research has shifted its focus to scaling up PD and sustaining teaching capacity by…

This study explores the changing landscape of technology teacher education, in relation to the increasing integration of digital content, especially programming, in teacher education for grades 4-6 (pupils 10-12 years old) and how student teachers in Sweden perceive this content. Limited research exists on student teachers in technology,…

The purpose of this research project was to design, deliver, and informally assess the content and methodology of an introductory online course for the educators of Deaf and Hard of Hearing students (N=20) that focused on the block-based coding language, Scratch. Prior work by The Playful Learning Lab examined various STEM resources and their…

There is limited research on teaching and learning of programming in primary school and even less about aspects concerning teaching programming from teachers' viewpoint. In this study, we explore how Finnish 1-6 primary school teachers (N=91), teaching at schools with Swedish as the language of instruction, relate to programming and teaching of…

Elementary school teachers are increasingly being asked to teach computer science (CS)--a subject area with which they often have little familiarity. To address this gap, teacher professional development (PD) is a common approach for helping teachers become familiar with CS content. This paper describes a collaborative PD designed to accompany a…

Current efforts to prepare teachers for integrating computational thinking (CT) into disciplinary areas often do not ensure equitable CT experiences for students. This study examined teachers' CT integration by applying the Accessible Computational Thinking (ACT) Framework designed to align elementary science teachers' professional learning and…