This study investigated the computational thinking (CT) practices of eight pre-service teachers through their Scratch and Python programs. Conducted within an undergraduate-level computer science education course, students learned CT concepts via parallel instruction in block-based programming (Scratch) and text-based programming (Python). The…

In the recent years, there has been a push to engage primary and secondary students in computer science to prepare them to live and work in a world influenced by computation. One of the efforts involves getting primary and secondary students to think computationally by introducing computational ideas such as, algorithms and abstraction. Majority…

As schools endeavor to provide all students with access to computational thinking and computer science, the hackathon emerges as a competitive and high-energy event that uses authentic problems to motivate learners to engage in the domain of computing. This article presents the design case of a hackathon for teenagers as enacted over five…

Design involves solving complex, ill-structured problems. Design tasks are consequently, appropriate contexts for children to exercise higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills. Although creating engaging and authentic design contexts for young children is difficult within the confines of traditional schooling, recently, game-design has…

We report on the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of a case-based instructional environment designed for learning network engineering skills for cybersecurity. We describe the societal problem addressed, the theory-based solution, and the preliminary testing and evaluation of that solution. We identify an architecture for…