Make 21st Century Education: The Importance of Teaching Programming in Schools (original) (raw)

A Framework for Studying Programming Teaching in Secondary Education

2020

This study extensively reviews the literature on teaching programming to middle schoolers, with a qualitative content analysis method, and intends to put forth a research design framework for researchers that will guide them in the processes of planning and designing their research on teaching programming for middle school learners. For access to the relevant literature; the databases were searched by using the following keywords: “computer”, “programming”, and “middle school” together, limiting the findings to the articles published after 2000. As a result, an upward tendency was noted in studies about the teaching of programming at secondary level considering years, most of which are comprised of empirical ones. Also, the existing studies were mostly carried out with 6th graders predominantly employing data collection tools of questionnaires/scales and achievement tests. As for programming tools, Scratch was seen to be the most commonly used one. Although quite a few articles are ...

Teaching Programming in Secondary Schools: Stepping and Stumbling Stones

Interaction Design and Architecture(s), 2021

Programming is introduced in secondary education in a growing number of subjects. This results in an increasing number of teachers teaching programming in their classes, often without proper training. Learning programming might be complicated, even more so is teaching it. In this context, there is a need to understand teachers' perspectives on teaching programming. This paper aims to identify challenges that teachers in secondary schools face and might negatively impact their teaching, i.e., stumbling stones, as well as elements that promote teaching and give motivation, i.e., stepping stones. The paper is based on the analysis of reflection notes delivered by in-service teachers attending a university-level course on teaching programming. The teachers compile the reflection notes after they complete their final project. Projects are centred around the definition of teaching plans to be tried out in class. The reflection notes of 173 students are analysed to identify issues related to: programming; teaching programming; recurrent didactic issues; and external challenges. The analysis is then summarised in a set of stumbling and stepping stones. For example, time is identified as one of the main stumbling stones by teachers. On the other side, motivation is one of the central stepping stones that we can identify in the data, often connected to the excitement of teaching something that was not previously taught in schools or that teachers perceive as highly relevant for society and the future job market. Implications for teacher training are also identified.

Analysis of teaching programming basics from pupils’ viewpoint

Lietuvos matematikos rinkinys, 2009

Teaching programming in a comprehensive school is a long and difficult process, which is why it should be analysed from various points of views. An analysis of pupils’ opinion on the lesson of programming basics has been carried out by combining pedagogical observation method with continuing questionnaires of pupils. Having processed the data of analysis, it has been determined that pupils’ cooperation with teacher and friends has a considerable influence on the success of learning programming. Moreover, the analysis has revealed that not only the final result is important but also the process of learning. In this article, the most common difficulties that pupils encounter when learning programming are discussed and their reasons are indicated. Having processed the results of pupils’ test task solutions, an attempt was made to determine if the pupils evaluate their knowledge, abilities and skills objectively. Finally, recommendations to teachers are given on the grounds of the resul...

Teaching computer programming: Practices, difficulties and opportunities

2015 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2015

It is highly recognized that difficulties involved in teaching programming in an introductory course, arise from the cognitive process complexity that is necessary for developing this ability. Previous studies on the best first programming language or the best first programming paradigm have been conducted. Even, the most appropriate integrated development environment (IDE) for novice programmers has been inquired, and the most appropriate problem solving strategy to teach to write computable solutions has been researched.

Toward a Framework of Programming Pedagogy

Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Second Edition

Why is learning to program so difficult? One difficulty is that learning to program needs the acquisition of a multitude of inter-related skills. Jenkins (2002) argues that programming is a complicated task, which requires the mastery of a number of skills such as problem solving, abstraction, mathematical logic and testing, debugging and so forth. A novice programmer simply lacks these skills. More importantly, success in learning to program demands knowledge of computer itself. Ben-Ari (1998) points out that students lack a viable mental model to learn programming. On the other hand, undue emphasis is placed on the learning of programming syntax (Deek, 1999). In this article, we will focus on approaches of teaching computer programing. Winslow (1996) introduced the term “programming pedagogy” in his paper. Although programming pedagogy is not explicitly defined in the paper, the term here refers to any instructional methods and strategies which are used to teach students introduct...

Programming Revisited - The Educational Value of Computer Programming

2004

This panel will address pedagogical needs for revisiting the role of computer programming for student learning. We will explore advances in programming platforms that enable students to create compelling projects with new technologies, and discuss the affordances of these new initiatives. We will address how these tools and techniques can be integrated into the curriculum of the classroom as well as informal learning environments.

Coding, Programming and the Changing Curriculum for Computing in Schools

2019

A meeting in Linz, Austria in June 2018 was convened by UNESCO together with IFIP TC3 in order to examine the needs and challenges/opportunities in relation to changing Computing curricula and the renewed focus on "coding" or programming and a stronger Computer Science content. The following key challenges previously identified (see task force/EDUSummIT report – Appendix 1) were all considered by delegates to apply in their own countries but with varying importance at different stages in their processes of curriculum change.

Programming in Primary Schools: Teaching on the Edge of Formal and Non-formal Learning

2020

While several countries have already introduced Computer Science or programming into their primary school curricula (e.g. the UK, Australia or Finland), Germany has not yet developed mandatory guidelines on how to deal with these matters. Although there is an agreement that students of all ages should gain insight into the recognition and formulation of algorithms, the focus in primary school is often still on the mere use of computers. Programming courses, on the other hand, are increasingly found in extracurricular activities. It is still open to what extent and in what form algorithms and programming can and should be introduced in primary schools in the longer term. To help answer this question, we trained 40 primary school teachers in algorithms and programming and examined how they implement the topics in their individual schools. Among these are teachers who teach programming in class (formal learning) as well as teachers who offer their students extra-curricular programming ...