Connecting through Coding: A Constructionist Proposal for a Collaborative Coding Resource for K-8 Teachers
Emily Chen, Nathan Lott, Caleigh Minshall and Natalie Roberts
The University of British Columbia
Key Framework
The inclusion of coding into the curriculum affords students with opportunities for computational and higher order thinking. Embedding well-designed coding tasks into “collaborative, problem-based and/or thematic curriculum designs, support a wide array of student thinking capabilities” (Falloon, 2016). No longer is coding seen as just a means to professional employment opportunities; coding is now understood to lead to expansive cognitive benefits for students and potentially democratizes the access of and contribution to knowledge. Now learners and teachers alike face the daunting prospect of shifting away from centralized, authoritative knowledge sources and toward an open, more fragmented future that UNESCO calls a “Knowledge Society” (2005). Education researchers as well as the B.C. Ministry of Education increasingly recognize the need for teachers to transform their practice in light of these changes, for teachers to “be designer[s] of learning environments for engaged students, rather than someone who regurgitates the textbook” (Kalantzis & Cope, 2010, p. 204). Intro2Coding will empower K-8 teachers to prepare themselves and their students for this societal shift by becoming the “New Teacher,” particularly in regards to coding resources in the classroom. Intro2Coding is a Constructionist pedagogical framework after Papert’s understanding that aims to engage its learners as meaning-makers themselves in a community of collaboration that encourages remixing, sharing, and producing artifacts of learning.
Intro2Coding engages K-8 teachers because, despite recognizing the importance of technology and new teaching-as-designing pedagogical theory, many teachers today do not know how to effectively integrate technology into their classrooms (Howard and Mozejko, 2015). Intro2Coding will introduce coding resources freely available online that utilize technologies common to elementary and middle schools, as well as showcase some technology-integrated lesson plans in Math, Arts, and Socials (for example); however, Intro2Coding’s primary aim will be to empower its learners — in this case, K-8 teachers — to create their own lesson plans, remix others’ plans and share the resulting projects online. In this way, Intro2Coding models the New London Group exhortation that teachers should think of themselves as “designers of learning processes and environments, not bosses dictating what those in their charge should think and do” (73). Rather than dictate how learners should use Intro2Coding, the website will allow learners to explore according to their own goals and contribute directly to the shared body of knowledge. As Intro2Coding matures, it will be a globally accessible knowledge bank built by and for teachers.
The educational media Intro2Coding employs is highly intentional, affording hyperlink-enabled breadth of exploration, learner contributions via discussion board, and a variety of interactive, project-based resources to reinforce our Constructionist approach. The majority of resources featured on Intro2Coding will be free and compatible even with older technologies, ensuring that most schools, teachers, and students will be able to access them. Rather than directive and linear, Intro2Coding will be a true web of information with some recommended but by no means required paths to help learners navigate the offerings. Kalantzis and Cope foreshadowed our project with The Learning Element, which allowed teachers to share and remix their learning designs with others in an online environment. Intro2Coding aims to fill the particular niche surrounding the use of and familiarity with computer programming in the K-8 classroom; we will focus primarily on Canadian curricular requirements, but anyone — including students themselves in K-8! — will be welcome to explore, access, and contribute to the continually growing and changing body of knowledge in this area via discussion board.
- Intentions and Positions
Our goal with Intro2Coding is to introduce a collaborative digital learning platform that provides K-8 educators with resources and a framework to design interdisciplinary projects for their students related to the implementation of the British Columbia Ministry of Education’s new coding curriculum. In this new curriculum, the B.C. Ministry of Education sets goals for students to develop, explore, understand, and apply skills in computational thinking via a variety of programming languages (2016). By learning computer programming, students could enhance their problem-solving, logical thinking, planning, and organization skills (Siegel, 2009). Through the creation of their own learning environments, students enhance their problem-solving skills by providing concrete experiences that promote thinking at a formal operational level (Papert, 1980). Intro2Coding will give educators the opportunity to learn, design, and reflect on technologies related to coding and allow educators to design learning environments that encourage students’ problem-solving and the other skills listed above.
Intro2Coding is designed to increase teachers’ confidence and self-efficacy regarding the new coding curriculum by encouraging educators to actively create their own projects while collaborating, reflecting, and receiving feedback from peers. With the introduction of coding in the new Applied Skills and Design Curriculum, educators in British Columbia have renewed interest in best practices to teach programming to students; however, many educators without a background in computer programming do not feel ready (Chan, 2016) to effectively implement this curriculum. Educational technology research shows many barriers, misunderstandings and lack of confidence when teachers encounter new technologies for the classroom (Glassett & Schrum, 2009; Allen, G., 2008). Zammit (1992) found that a major obstacle to successful technology integration was the lack of teacher confidence and skill when using technology. Sabzian & Gilakjani (2013) noted that, in regards to computer technology, anxiety, and integration that teachers need to be provided with explanation, guidance and assistance from trainers and other colleagues, and also the opportunities to reflect and discuss the integration, share outcomes and possible problems with each other. With Intro2Coding, educators will experience a Constructionist learning environment where they can build their own projects, experiment and collaborate with colleagues, and receive feedback on their work.
Intro2Coding aims to build educators’ confidence and skill regarding programming in a number of research-proven ways. For example, recently Yukselturk and Altiok (2016) found that educators’ negative attitudes surrounding computer programming decreased when they had the opportunity to try coding with a versatile and user-friendly programming platform such as Scratch. Taking this study into consideration, we hope to extend these results into other programming languages and cross-curricular directions. Additionally, Kafai & Peppler (2011) believe that educators need to be interested in their students’ DIY communities, where these students voluntarily learn technical skills. Intro2Coding will allow educators the opportunity to experience and learn about the coding “world” and its DIY communities. Finally, Mouza & Levigne (2013) classify emerging technologies into 4 classes: Learning to Understand and Create, Learning By Collaboration, Anytime, Anyplace Learning, and Support Learning by Gaming. Intro2Coding will allow educators to participate in different aspects of each of these classes. By immersing themselves in a Constructionist environment, educators will develop many of the skills and strategies that they in turn may encourage their students to acquire.
Instructionist lessons lead to a single desired finished product that can be summatively assessed and compared to an agreed upon standard. In comparison, Intro2Coding encourages a Constructionist mindset both in its delivery and its sample lesson plans for teachers. Intro2Coding will form a collaborative online ecosystem to educate and support those new to this this paradigm. Our community will emphasize the diversity of experiences, knowledge, and participation of its learners, including “an emphasis on the social and interactive context, or the situatedness, of building valued artifacts within a bounded setting, or a ‘microworld’” (Brennan and Resnick, 2013). Intro2Coding will not provide pre-made lessons, but rather give teachers tools to remix and explore, then feed back into the site for others to explore. Intro2Coding focuses on Brennan and Resnick’s (2013) concept of design as “an iterative approach that involves design cycles of imagining, creating, playing, sharing, and reflecting,” best achieved when “designers of all ages and backgrounds can find support for their learning experiences in contexts where they have access to others.” Intro2Code’s online space means that ideas can be transferred quickly, removing geophysical restrictions to create a collective intelligence.
Our Intro2Coding project objective aligns with the British Columbia Ministry of Education Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies goals (2016) and to have educators deliver this curriculum effectively and efficiently. This Intro2Coding platform intends to foster teachers’ comfort, skill, and knowledge of the ADST curriculum by learning and subsequently applying their knowledge in a collaborative digital environment. Teachers are able to develop their own lesson plans or to remix and repurpose existing lessons to make them applicable to their particular K-8 educational environments. We are promoting a new media literacy in coding and technology that centers student needs as participatory learners who work across multiple modalities. Critical, ethical, technical, and creative participatory competencies are at the heart of our desire to help teachers learn this new tool. Currently there is no “one stop shop” to bring educators together to collaboratively discuss and practice coding, and we hope to bridge this gap.
III. Key Concepts and Contexts
The new generation of learners in our schooling system is significantly different from previous students in terms of both learning preferences and habits. Teachers who use traditional teaching methodologies may now struggle to engage these students, who are accustomed to using technology to independently find answers as well as to collaboratively create knowledge (Kalantzis & Cope, 2010). Intro2Coding will help teachers more accurately target lesson plans to spark the students’ interests, develop intrinsic motivators and help students develop self-regulation. Calling these new students the “Net-Generation,” Tapscott writes that educators need to have a deep awareness of the N-Geners’ digital lived experiences (2009). N-Geners have a number of key characteristics; for example, they customize things to make them their own, naturally collaborate with others, and prefer speedy innovation over tradition.
Intro2Coding will challenge educators to design and share lesson plans where they incorporate coding into different subjects, using best practices based on current research. For example, Burke showed that learners best access the information in which they are interested when the content follows a horizontal flow (Burk, 1999). In improving how knowledge is created and shared in the classroom, teachers can effectively raise the level of expertise in a classroom and provide equal learning opportunities for their students (Rajan et al., 2004). This idea is true for both students learning new knowledge in a classroom, and for teachers who are learning to become more technologically fluent. Intro2Coding will include a collaborative space where educators can share their lesson plans and comment on how the plan was executed in order to increase reflection, collaboration, experimentation, and remixing.
Furthermore, Intro2Coding seeks to destabilize teachers’ traditional, authoritative role in the classroom and transition teachers to the new “Knowledge Society”; as teachers engage with the N-Geners, it can be daunting for teachers whose authority is challenged when students ask questions about technologies and coding beyond the teacher’s expertise. To combat this issue, educators should strive to be technologically fluent and also comfortable with democratizing knowledge sources. This can be achieved when educators learn to design rather than spout knowledge, and also learn to produce and reformulate knowledge (Kafai & Peppler, 2011). Intro2Coding will allow registered users to contribute to the knowledge base, regardless of background or experience with technology. This knowledge-sharing friendly design will boost teachers’ confidence by providing recognition as a motivator for sharing. Their contributions may include uploading lesson plans, providing feedback on or remixing others’ lesson plans, or submitting links to what their students produced as the outcome of a lesson plan.
Intro2Coding will also emphasize developing students’ and teachers’ creativity with technology. Kalantzis described “school knowledge” as a rigid list of information that students simply had to memorize in order to excel (Kalantzis & Cope, 2010). This kind of education worked well in an era where school graduates were not required to demonstrate creativity in the workforce, but social changes have brought us to a time where knowledge and creativity take a “uniquely central place” (Kalantzis & Cope, 2010). Success now belongs to problem solvers, innovators, risk takers, creators, and collaborators. Intro2Coding will encourage these behaviours by incorporating a remix functionality, where one teacher may add onto or redevelop another teacher’s lesson plan. Individuals will be able to customize their learning experience based on their needs. The original lesson plan and the remixed versions will be placed into different categories of the website, so it will be easy for users to navigate according to their skill level and interests, allowing them to customize their learning experience on the site. In this way, Intro2Coding models how educators more generally should start to value the advantage of customization through using technology in the classroom (Collins & Halverson, 2009).
Intro2Coding will challenge educators to take a step towards being technologically fluent, comfortable in a knowledge-sharing learning environment, and open to seeing student creativity flourish when coding is incorporated into subjects such as math and language arts. Intro2Coding will be a platform where educators become learners themselves in order to truly understand the new generation of learners, through adopting their proactive, collaborative, and design-thinking learning styles. In this way, Intro2Coding will push teachers away from Instructionism and toward Constructionism where mistakes are valued, knowledge is constructed and shared, and no one person or source is the knowledge authority. Instead, Intro2Coding will encourage teachers to make mistakes in front of their students and to join their learning journey. With our model we hope to create a reciprocal classroom environment where teachers-and-students develop their own path of inquiry, knowledge-making, interpretation, and analysis — their “sense of identity as empowered democratic citizens” (Kincheloe, 2008).
- InterActivities
Intro2Coding will utilize a Web 2.0 platform that supports learning in a knowledge community, an activity system that expands into “a complex social organization that contains learners, teachers, curricula, and technologies” (Mouza & Lavigne, 2013). Intro2Coding’s purpose is to encourage teachers to grow comfortable with, create, and share lesson plans that integrate coding with other subjects; therefore, our platform must combine personal and collective knowledge as well as facilitate a participatory system in which educators share successful applications of coding in the classroom. We chose Wix.com as our design platform as it balances Brown’s three basic needs for Design: Desirability, Feasibility and Viability (Brown, 2009). Firstly, Wix is an accessible and beginner-friendly platform for those with limited to no coding or web building experience. Customization options are plentiful and it boasts an intuitive GUI (Graphical User Interface). Wix is also a flexible system, allowing users to upload video, insert PDF’s, add apps and blogs, create contact forms, and build comment areas. Fortunately, it also has a large storage space! External applications can be added as well such as embedding other websites, linking buttons to other web resources, or adding customized HTML code to the site. Wix is accessible by mobile or desktop and its design is customizable.
In Intro2Coding, teachers will plan an activity-oriented lesson plan, which will follow the Understanding by Design (UbD) lesson planning process in order to enhance the student’s learning outcome (McTighe & Wiggins, 2012). Teachers will plan their lessons “backwards” by first identifying student’s desired learning results. In this lesson planning process, teachers should be answering questions backwards from final objective to initial lesson activities. Some examples are “What will your students know and be able to do after this lesson?”, “What will your students do to understand or apply the concept?”, “What products will reveal evidence of meaning-making?”, and finally “What activities, experiences, and lessons will lead to achievement of the desired results and success in the assessments?”
- Verifications
Our assessment of Intro2Coding can be divided into two broad categories: firstly, its overall outreach to teachers in British Columbia and beyond, and secondly, whether participation in Intro2Coding improves teachers’ confidence with coding, the design cycle, and the educational implications of the Knowledge Society and N-Geners. Assessing Intro2Coding’s outreach will be accomplished by recording logged-in users’ statistics (such as location), using a Google Analytics plug-in to track website traffic and demographics, and creating a Google Map to track when and where projects and lesson plans are remixed. In the interests of transparency, usage statistics like location, frequency and type of use may be recorded into an Excel document and converted into an app available on Intro2Coding itself using Caspio.
Assessing Intro2Coding’s performance in terms of affecting change in its users will be implemented separately. Wix affords several types of comment boxes to allow users to provide formative feedback on different components of the site. For example, lesson plans will allow comments and rating scales where other users may comment and rate the lesson. Wix also has third-party apps that generate feedback forms, allowing us to assess our learners’ goals, interests and skills when they first register at Intro2Coding and then to re-assess their progress three months later. This allows us to evaluate Intro2Coding’s impact and also to help the learners to identify their learning objectives and reflect on their experience. Initial questions may include “What technology-related skill or area of knowledge would you most like to improve?”, while follow-up questions may include “Were you successful in achieving that goal?” Some of this assessment is hypothetical due to the limitations of ETEC 510’s timeline; Intro2Coding’s true impact will not be known until months or even years after its creation as the community matures.
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