Maria Knobelsdorf, University of Dortmund, Germany - Didaktik der ...

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pendent research. They had to experiment with different modules to find out exactly how they worked. The wider skills they gain through engagement in these activities have a positive effect on developing their personal, learning and thinking skills. The pedagogical model that we used encouraged a bricolage approach. We wanted to provide some instruction, but then to inspire children to experiment with modules and devices on their own and come up with their own devices. For some of the children, though, the gap between our Phase 1 and Phase 2 was too great and the teachers did not obviously have the background or sufficient training in the platform to support them. We need to build on the incremental problem solving as used successfully by Stiller [28] and provide smaller gaps in future materials, to maintain both teacher and student confidence. We have not specifically tested the students’ understanding of programming principles in this project. Meerbaum- Salant carried out a study whereby she measured the understanding of key programming concepts of students who had participated in a course using the Scratch programming environment [19]. She reports that “the bottom-up programming habit is clearly encouraged by the characteristics of the Scratch environment and is in line with Papert’s philosophy of constructionism . . . and with bricolage” [p.171] and concludes that “. . . we are disturbed by the habits of programming that we uncovered. These habits are not at all what one expects as the outcome of learning computer science” [p.172]. It is not clear whether she is blaming the Scratch environment in being too “easy” or the constructionist and bricolage approach in her concerns about long-term effects of an exploratory approach to programming. We would hope to be able to show that an exploratory, and bricolage-centred, pedagogical approach can be both motivating and teach good programming habits, in the context of a real programming language that works behind a motivating hardware environment. As the platform is still new and materials are still under development, we have not yet been able to replicate this level of analysis of learning for .NET Gadgeteer. However, although a bricolage approach seems implicit in ‘gadgetbuilding’, it may not be as bottom-up as the Scratch programming that Meerbaum-Salant describes. Where students assemble their gadget before programming, they have put together all the modules they need for the project and then can break down the programming into events. This provides more of a top-down, but also very concrete experience of program development. More research is obviously needed to discover if this is effective in the long-term acquisition of key concepts. This will involve the development of a suitable research instrument to measure learning with .NET Gadgeteer. Figure 9 adds the development of the wider personal, learning and thinking skills to that shown in Figure 4. This illustrates some of the potential wider skills that can be gained by students working on .NET Gadgeteer in groups on their own projects. 7. CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER WORK In this paper, we have presented our experiences of using .NET Gadgeteer in schools with students of various ages and backgrounds over a four-month period. Our findings have revealed that students are very engaged by it, and are 104 Figure 9: Wider skills development with .NET Gadgeteer inspired to build devices for which they can see a real purpose. Through analysis of data from students and teachers, we have uncovered some key features of .NET Gadgeteer that provide motivation and interest: challenge, freedom to explore, tangibility and exposure to the real world of Computing. We are partway towards answering our research questions: 1. Is .NET Gadgeteer an engaging and motivating environment to work with in schools? We have found that students reported positively about using .NET Gadgeteer for a range of reasons, as described in this paper. 2. Can students in lower and upper secondary schools use .NET Gadgeteer to build devices with the initial teaching materials developed? Students have been successful in building devices; however, the teachers indicated that the materials need to be developed further. 3. Could .NET Gadgeteer be used to support student learning in Computer Science in school? With the changes in the curriculum in the UK, involving the introduction of more Computer Science in secondary schools, .NET Gadgeteer provides an environment that is both engaging and encourages experiential learning. Working with .NET Gadgeteer has the potential to develop students’ ability to work collaboratively. Programming skills can be developed through a mixture of instruction and an exploratory approach to learning. 4. Is .NET Gadgeteer most suitable in schools as an extracurricular activity or could it have a place in the curriculum (in England and Wales)? The research revealed that working through the materials and creating the devices was quite intensive and required more time than available in an after-school club. Further work is needed to write longer courses that would work with curricular in UK schools and within examined courses. The .NET Gadgeteer platform is still in its infancy as it was only launched in August 2011. At the time of writing, more modules are being developed by an increasing number of manufacturers. The pilot project was successful in its aims and objectives which were to establish that .NET Gadgeteer can be a useful
tool for teachers and students in the classroom. Its tangible nature engenders curiosity and creativity, and motivates students to explore, bricolage-fashion, how to program their device. The physical nature of the platform encourages a learning-by-doing experiential approach to learning and in addition lends itself to collaborative working, whereby students with a range of skills and abilities can support and learn from each other. As an initial pilot project with a new platform, this research has highlighted particular areas of further work. In future studies using .NET Gadgeteer, we would like to investigate how students’ perception of the importance of challenge and creativity links to the development of secure and robust programming understanding. It is thus proposed that further studies with .NET Gadgeteer focus on the facilitation of the acquisition of certain programming concepts. The two-phase pedagogical model utilised in the pilot project will be developed further to provide more staged support, whilst retaining an exploratory and experiential approach. 8. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS With thanks to Steve Hodges and Steven Johnston, Microsoft Research, and to all the participating teachers and students for their assistance and enthusiasm during the pilot project. The first author would like to thank Microsoft Research for supporting her work. 9. REFERENCES [1] O. Astrachan, J. Cuny, C. Stephenson, and C. Wilson. The CS10K Project: Mobilizing the Community to Transform High School Computing. In Proceedings of the 42nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE ’11, pages 85–86, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM. [2] M. Ben-Ari. Constructivism in Computer Science Education. In Proceedings of the 29th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, pages 257–261. ACM, 1998. [3] T. Brinda, H. Puhlmann, and C. Schulte. Bridging ICT and CS - Educational Standards for Computer Science in Lower Secondary Education. Proceedings of ITICSE’09, Paris, France, July 6-9 2009. [4] L. Carter. Why Students with an Apparent Aptitude for Computer Science Don’t Choose to Major in Computer Science. In Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, pages 27–31. ACM, 2006. [5] S. Cooper, W. Dann, and R. Pausch. Alice: a 3-D Tool for Introductory Programming Concepts. J.Comput.Sci.Coll., 15(5):107–116, Apr. 2000. [6] T. Crick and S. Sentance. Computing at School: Stimulating Computing Education in the UK. In Proceedings of the 11th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research, Koli Calling ’11, pages 122–123, New York, USA, 2011. ACM. [7] Q. Cutts, S. Esper, and B. Simon. Computing as the 4th R: a General Education Approach to Computing Education. In Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Computing Education Research, ICER ’11, pages 133–138, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM. 105 [8] T. Downes and D. Looker. Factors that Influence Students’ Plans to Take Computing and Information Technology Subjects in Senior Secondary School. Computer Science Education, 21(2):175–199, 2011. [9] A. Fisher and J. Margolis. Unlocking the Clubhouse: the Carnegie Mellon Experience. SIGCSE Bulletin, 34(2):79–83, June 2002. [10] O. Hazzan, J. Gal-Ezer, and L. Blum. A Model for High School Computer Science Education: the Four Key Elements that Make It! In Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, pages 281–285. ACM, 2008. [11] F. T. Hofstetter. Multimedia Literacy. Irwin/McGraw-Hill, Boston, 2nd edition, 1997. [12] M. S. Horn, R. J. Crouser, and M. U. Bers. Tangible Interaction and Learning: the Case for a Hybrid Approach. Personal Ubiquitous Computing, 16(4):379–389, Apr. 2012. [13] M. Kordaki, M. Miatidis, and G. Kapsampelis. A Computer Environment for Beginners’ Learning of Sorting Algorithms: Design and Pilot Evaluation. Computers and Education, 51:708–723, 2008. [14] C. Lévi-Strauss, J. Weightman, and D. Weightman. The Savage Mind. University of Chicago Press, 1966. [15] M. Kolling. The Greenfoot Programming Environment. Transactions on Computing Education, 10(4):14:1–14:21, Nov. 2010. [16] M. MacLaurin. Kodu: End-User Programming and Design for Games. In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games, FDG ’09, New York, USA, 2009. ACM. [17] J. Maloney, M. Resnick, N. Rusk, B. Silverman, and E. Eastmond. The Scratch Programming Language and Environment. Transactions on Computing Education, 10(4):16:1–16:15, Nov. 2010. [18] P. Marshall. Do Tangible Interfaces Enhance Learning? In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction, TEI ’07, pages 163–170, New York, NY, USA, 2007. ACM. [19] O. Meerbaum-Salant, M. Armoni, and M. Ben-Ari. Habits of Programming in Scratch. In Proceedings of the 16th Annual Joint Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE ’11, pages 168–172, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM. [20] A. Munson, B. Moskal, A. Harriger, T. Lauriski-Karriker, and D. Heersink. Computing at the High School Level: Changing What Teachers and Students Know and Believe. Computing Education, 57(2):1836–1849, Sept. 2011. [21] S. Papert. Mindstorms: Children, Computers, And Powerful Ideas. Basic Books, 1993. 92053249. [22] L. Pollock and T. Harvey. Combining Multiple Pedagogies to Boost Learning and Enthusiasm. In Proceedings of the 16th Annual Joint Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE ’11, pages 258–262, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM. [23] M. Richards, M. Petre, and A. K. Bandara. Starting with Ubicomp: Using the Senseboard to Introduce Computing. In Proceedings of the 43rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE
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Fakultät für Mathematik, Informat
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Program Committee Michal Armoni Wei
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Challenge and Creativity: Students
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Challenges in Computer Science Educ
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examples, and in practice teachers
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ital system used a variety of inter
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computer science, and with the less
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effect of different factors on the
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(GE) and freshmen CS and Lyceum (GR
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Performance Expectancy (PE) Satisfa
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for active CS teachers. Furthermore
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participants change between the roo
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Altogether 830 participants visited
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7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The initial equi
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• self-concept in science • ins
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mean at t0 mean at t2 mean at t0 me
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characteristics mean m (regarding t
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technology subjects in senior secon
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the educational programs and ration
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8. REFERENCES [1] Bell, T. et al. 2
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ABSTRACT This study examines the po
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Maria Knobelsdorf, University of Dortmund, Germany - Didaktik der ...

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