Learning Programming Concepts Through Maze Game in Scratch.

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Bibliographic Details
Title:	Learning Programming Concepts Through Maze Game in Scratch.
Authors:	Ternik, Žan¹ zan.ternik@gmail.com, Koron, Anja¹ akoron700@gmail.com, Koron, Tine¹ tkoron95@gmail.com, Šerbec, Irena Nančovska¹ irena.nancovska@pef.uni-lj.si
Source:	Proceedings of the European Conference on Games Based Learning. 2017, p661-670. 10p.
Subject Terms:	Computer programming education, Adult education workshops, *School children, Computer game programming, Computer scientists
Abstract:	Computational thinking, according to Wing, is a fundamental skill for everyone, not just for computer scientists. In the last decade, computer scientists and teachers stress that it is important to engage students in developing computational thinking at early age. It is strongly anchored in problem-solving paradigm of learning and could be supported by different activities, e.g., workshop on making maze games in Scratch. In the paper we analyse the projects developed by primary school students during the constructionist workshop. We were interested in how the students understand computational concepts, as a dimension of computational thinking, reflected in their projects. We analyse the computational thinking concepts in the projects in accordance with Brennan and Resnick suggestions and in the context of neo-Piagetian theory of cognitive development according to Lister and Teague. Projects reflect the understanding and use of following concepts: sequences, loops, parallelism, events, conditionals, operators and data. All of the students, no matter what the background knowledge they had, were at the end of the workshop able to understand and use sequences, loops, events and conditionals. Students who had background knowledge in Scratch were also able to include in their project parallelism and variables (data). We quantitatively assessed projects with the tool Dr. Scratch and checked the presence of the previously mentioned concepts. The results of our research will not be helpful only for understanding the development of student's computational thinking but they can also help scholars who use Scratch in process of learning in optional elective course Computer Science in the second three-year cycle of Slovenian primary schools. It was confirmed that the problem-based learning is suitable for students with different background knowledge. At the same time the topic of maze-game in Scratch holds the students' engagement and attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database:	Education Research Complete

Description
Abstract:	Computational thinking, according to Wing, is a fundamental skill for everyone, not just for computer scientists. In the last decade, computer scientists and teachers stress that it is important to engage students in developing computational thinking at early age. It is strongly anchored in problem-solving paradigm of learning and could be supported by different activities, e.g., workshop on making maze games in Scratch. In the paper we analyse the projects developed by primary school students during the constructionist workshop. We were interested in how the students understand computational concepts, as a dimension of computational thinking, reflected in their projects. We analyse the computational thinking concepts in the projects in accordance with Brennan and Resnick suggestions and in the context of neo-Piagetian theory of cognitive development according to Lister and Teague. Projects reflect the understanding and use of following concepts: sequences, loops, parallelism, events, conditionals, operators and data. All of the students, no matter what the background knowledge they had, were at the end of the workshop able to understand and use sequences, loops, events and conditionals. Students who had background knowledge in Scratch were also able to include in their project parallelism and variables (data). We quantitatively assessed projects with the tool Dr. Scratch and checked the presence of the previously mentioned concepts. The results of our research will not be helpful only for understanding the development of student's computational thinking but they can also help scholars who use Scratch in process of learning in optional elective course Computer Science in the second three-year cycle of Slovenian primary schools. It was confirmed that the problem-based learning is suitable for students with different background knowledge. At the same time the topic of maze-game in Scratch holds the students' engagement and attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:	20490992