The challenges of addressing increasing calls for the inclusion of computational thinking skills in K-12 education in the midst of crowded school curricula can be mitigated, in part, by promoting STEM learning in after-school settings. The Visualization Basics: Using Gaming to Improve Computational Thinking project provided opportunities for middle school students to participate in after-school clubs focused on game development and LEGO robotics in an effort to increase computational thinking skills. Club leaders and teachers, however, first needed to develop proficiency with the computational

In this chapter you will learn how a community college in rural Wyoming is implementing professional development resources in Computer Science and computational thinking skills for middle and high school teachers in their communities. The objective of the community college was to build relationships with schools to teach Computer Science concepts and computational thinking skills in the classroom. In this day and age, many people young and old are spending time on playing games or simulations. Why not teach Computer Science concepts and computational thinking skills through gaming and

This article examines teacher preparation and teacher change in engineering and computer science education. We examined culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy (CRTSE), culturally responsive teaching outcome expectancy (CRTOE) beliefs, and attitudes toward computational thinking (CT) as teachers participated in one of three treatment groups: robotics only, game design only, or blended robotics/game design. Descriptive data revealed that CRTSE gain scores were higher in the robotics only and blended contexts than in the game design only context. However, CRTOE beliefs were consistent

Traditional methods of STEM education position the child as a novice and create narrow opportunities for children to demonstrate and constructively utilize their developing skills, related interests and capabilities, perhaps even inadvertently suppressing them (Stevens, 2000; Bevan, Bell, Stevens, & Razfar, 2012; Barron, 2006). Researchers have explored expertise in terms of domain mastery (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Romer, 1993), developed models for how novices become domain experts (Alexander, 2003), and discussed pathways along which students move in developing science expertise (Schwarz et

This book offers math educators strategies and resources for putting that principle into practice.

The ideas in this article resulted from many years of research in engineering, physics, computer, and cognitive sciences, as well as teaching experience in college and secondary schools. While its main purpose is to discuss the universality of modeling and simulation process and its pedagogical use in teaching, there are several conclusions to be drawn.

The construct of computational thinking (CT) was popularized a decade ago as an “attitude and skillset” for everyone. However, since it is equated with thinking by computer scientists, the teaching of these skills poses many challenges at K-12 because of their reliance on the use of electronic computers and programming concepts that are often found too abstract and difficult by young students. This article links CT – i.e., thinking generated and facilitated by a computational device – to our typical fundamental cognitive processes by using a model of mind that is aligned with research in