Computational Thinking Resources Inspired by Bebras (original) (raw)
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Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 1
This paper describes our process of creating computational thinking (CT) resources for primary school teachers in Ireland. The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment has proposed a revised primary mathematics curriculum with an emphasis on CT skills and problem solving, and some teachers would like to introduce it already on an informal basis. However, CT is not yet part of teacher training. Our motivating question has been: how can teachers without a computer science background deliver CT at primary level in Ireland? Our process involves third-level computer science academics co-creating resources with in-service and pre-service teachers during workshops. The resources comprise a workbook and lesson plans. Our resources are based on tasks from the International Bebras Challenge, a well-known large-scale international CT contest with a reasonably gender-neutral profile of school-age participants. The workbook consists of ten Bebras tasks, each followed by a page of original activities on the theme of the task. A set of ten lesson plans accompanies the workbook. Each lesson plan has information about how to use the corresponding workbook activities in the classroom, where the activity might fit into the existing curriculum, categorisation of the task in terms of eight CT topics, differentiation, and extension activities. This paper explains our process of workshop planning, workbook creation, and lesson plan co-creation. Preliminary evaluation of our process uses teacher feedback. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.
A Computational Thinking Obstacle Course Based on Bebras Tasks for K-12 Schools
2023
This paper describes an unplugged computational thinking (CT) resource for primary and secondary schools developed from Bebras tasks. In Ireland, CT is not part of the primary school curriculum or mandatory in secondary schools. However, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment is in the process of revising the primary school curriculum to include aspects of CT. Our aim for creating this CT Obstacle Course is to introduce teachers (and pupils) without formal computer science training to the subject of CT. This is done in a manner that informs and motivates, and gives them the confidence to deliver CT materials in the classroom. We also want to find out from teachers how useful and important this type of resource is for developing problem-solving skills, and if our unplugged activity can support learning at various skill levels. Our CT Obstacle Course includes 14 Bebras tasks for primary schools and an additional 6 Bebras tasks for secondary schools. The activity is suitable for indoors and outdoors and is completed in groups, promoting teamwork and communication. We have delivered it to 146 primary school classes during 38 school visits between May 2021 and June 2022. It has been undertaken by 3,445 pupils and 195 teachers and other school staff. This paper describes our CT resource in detail, and reports teacher feedback from primary schools.
Promoting Computational Thinking Skills: Would You Use this Bebras Task?
Informatics in Schools: Focus on Learning Programming, 2017
Bebras, an international challenge organized on an annual basis in several countries (50 in 2016), has the goal of promoting informatics and computational thinking through attractive tasks. We analyzed Bebras tasks by considering the Computational Thinking (CT) skills each task promotes, starting from the operational definition of CT developed by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the ACM-founded Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA). We argue that such an approach is indeed well-suited to present Bebras tasks, especially with the goal to use them in curricular teaching: framing them as CT enablers helps in making explicit their educational potential, that can be appreciated also by teachers without a formal education in informatics and adapted to a wide range of ages and schools. We explored the viability of our approach by interviewing teachers of different kinds of schools. We propose to use these CT skills also as a tool to classify Bebras tasks, which results in a more uniform distribution of tasks, w.r.t. the one obtained by leveraging content topics.
Developing Computational Thinking Test Using Bebras Problems
2018
Assessment is one of the major factors to consider when developing a new course or program of study. When developing a course to teach Computer Science there are many forms this could take, one of which is linked to Computational Thinking. Whilst developing Computer Science to Go (CS2Go), an introductory course aimed at secondary school students, we have developed a Computational Thinking test based on the problems developed for the international Bebras Challenge. This paper will describe the content and development of the course, as well as some analysis on results from a year-long study with secondary school students and first-year undergraduate students. We believe that, based on our analysis and previous research in the field, that our assessment, based on pre-exisiting Bebras problems, has the potential to offer educators another way of testing this increasingly discussed skill, Computational Thinking.
Computational Thinking Game Design Based on the Bebras Challenge: A Controlled Experiment
Anais do XXX Workshop sobre Educação em Computação (WEI 2022)
The use of games is a promising approach to engage students and to teach computational few educational games are related to this topic. One reason for that is the difficult to create CT Game Designs. In this context, this work has the objective of verifying if interesting computational thinking games can be created from the analysis of Bebras Challenge tasks, an international initiative that presents a set of attractive and well-elaborated tasks to exercise and evaluate computational thinking (CT) abilities. A controlled experiment was performed and the achieved results indicate that Bebras tasks are a good source of inspiration for designing CT games. Hence, their use can support the creation of new CT games, ensuring a balanced level of educational and entertainment aspects.
Getting Inspired by Bebras Tasks. How Italian Teachers Elaborate on Computing Topics
Informatics in education, 2020
The Bebras challenge offers pupils and teachers an engaging opportunity to discover informatics, by solving small tasks that aim at promoting computational thinking. Explanations and comments that reveal the computing concepts underlying the tasks are published after the contest, and teachers are encouraged to use this material in their school practice. In this paper we present an exploratory study aimed at investigating how teachers can make use of Bebras material; in particular our interest is understanding whether teachers are able to identify, comprehend, and apply the computing concepts implied by Bebras tasks, and how they can integrate them into their teaching practice. We qualitatively analyzed teaching projects developed by Italian teachers during a workshop on computing education and based on Bebras tasks; the analysis shows that teachers are in general able to build upon the tasks soundly, but it also raises some critical issues.
2020
The interest in the Bebras movement and the number of participants increases every year. Participants of this international contest have to solve Informatics related tasks, requiring no specific education in that field. Each of the tasks covers one or more categories of Computational Thinking (CT) and can be assigned to special domains of Computer Science (CS). Although the practical definition of CT is still a moving target, this challenge can be seen as a measurement tool for CT competencies. In this paper, we present an analysis of different aspects of the Austrian Bebras competition over the last three years. Accumulated statistical datasets are compared and analyzed as well as detailed task solutions. Moreover, the data provide information about CT skills and CS domains mastered by the pupils and, conversely, about difficulties in certain task categories. Accordingly, the evaluated data provided by the automatic testing system can be used to draw conclusions about the developme...
SAGE-RA: A Reference Architecture to Advance the Teaching and Learning of Computational Thinking
The International Conference on Embedding Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Education Policy and Practice for Southeast Asia, 2019
Rapid technological advances and the increasing number of students in Southeast Asian nations present a difficult challenge: how should schools adequately equip teachers with the right tools to effectively teach Computational Thinking, when the demand for such teachers outstrips their readiness and availability? To address this challenge, we present the SAGE reference architecture: an architecture for a learning environment for elementary, middle-school and high-school students based on the Scratch programming language. We synthesize research in the domains of game-based learning, implicit assessments, intelligent tutoring systems, and learning conditions, and suggest a teacher-assisting instructional platform that provides automated and personalized machine learning recommendations to students as they learn Computational Thinking. We discuss the uses and components of this system that collects, categorizes, structures, and refines data generated from students' and teachers' interactions, and also facilitates personalized student learning through: 1) predictions of students' distinct programming behaviors via employment of clustering and classification models, 2) automation of aspects of formative assessment formulations and just-in-time feedback delivery, and 3) utilization of item-based and user-based collaborative filtering to suggest customized learning paths. The proposed reference architecture consists of several architectural components, with explanations on their necessity and interactions to foster future replications or adaptations in similar educational contexts.