Alexandria K. Hansen

Educating Teachers for the Maker Movement: Pre-service Teachers' Experiences Facilitating Maker Activities

In this paper, we describe an event where 33 pre-service elementary school teachers planned and facilitated a School Maker Faire as part of their elementary science teaching methods course. We focus on one group of four pre-service teachers who facilitated a balloon rocket station and examine the decisions they made when facilitating childrens interactions at the stations and how these decisions led to constraining or creating opportunities for children to engage in engineering design.

Differentiating for Diversity: Using Universal Design for Learning in Elementary Computer Science Education

As computer science moves from an outreach activity to a normal classroom activity in the multi-subject, mainstream elementary school classroom, curricula need to be examined to ensure they are meeting the needs of diverse students. In this paper, we present how Universal Design for Learning (UDL) was used to develop and refine a programming environment and curriculum for upper-elementary school classrooms (students aged 9-12). We then present our accommodations and modifications to emphasize the ways our development environment and/or curriculum enabled such uses. Ensuring introductory computer science experiences are equitable and accessible for a wide range of student learners may broaden the diversity of individuals who perceive themselves as capable of pursuing computer science in the future.

Fourth Grade Students Reading Block-Based Programs: Predictions, Visual Cues, and Affordances

Visual block-based programming environments allow elementary school students to create their own programs in ways that are more accessible than in textual programming environments. These environments help students write code by removing syntax errors and reducing typing. Students create code by dragging, dropping, and snapping constructs together (e.g. blocks) that are organized by lists, colors, shape, images, etc. However, programming in visual block-based environments is not always simple; in fact, it can become complex quickly. In addition to elements that create code, the visual aspects of these environments provide readers information about what happens, when, and how. Here, we focus on how students used visual cues when reading programs in our block-based programming environment, LaPlaya, a variant of Scratch. Specifically we identified the visual cues students noticed and acted upon. These included not only those that were intended by designers (perceptible affordances), but also those that were not intended by designers (false affordances). Through a detailed content analysis of 13 focus groups with fourth graders we created an initial taxonomy of visual cues in our programming environment and explored how students used these cues to make predictions about provided code, and the types of affordances such cues offered students.

Teacher Education for Maker Education: Helping Teachers Develop Appropriate PCK for Engaging Children in Educative Making

Despite the potential of the maker movement to influence how we teach students in school, thus far, most research on maker activities have taken place in informal spaces, such as museums and after-school programs, which are inaccessible to some populations. To ensure maker education reaches all students, it must find its place at school. However, classroom-based maker activities have different constraints and may require teachers to hold different types of knowledge. We drew from the body of research on maker education to create a course that prepared pre-service elementary school teachers to implement activities that were consistent with the maker ethos and met state and district standards. As a course assignment, the teacher candidates designed and hosted a School Maker Faire for elementary school children, providing an opportunity for local children to participate in maker activities and for pre-service elementary school teachers to design, facilitate, and reflect on maker education as a method of teaching science. In this paper, we delineate the constituent parts of maker pedagogical content knowledge and describe how pre-service teachers developed the appropriate knowledge for integrating maker education activities into their classroom curriculum. We propose that the knowledge teachers need to facilitate and assess student learning through maker education is more complex than either science pedagogical content knowledge or engineering pedagogical content knowledge.

Ecological Design-Based Research for Computer Science Education: Affordances and Effectivities for Elementary School Students

Abstract This article integrates an ecological approach and design-based research in computer science education research by following the simultaneous development of a computer programming environment and curriculum for elementary school age children over 2-1/2 years. We studied the alignment of the affordances provided by the programming environment and curriculum with the effectivities of students in 4th through 6th grade (9-12 years old). We used the computer science concept of initializing as a tracer idea and both qualitative and quantitative data to identify mismatches between the affordances provided by our programming environment and the learners’ effectivities. These included requisite mathematical skills, confusion between resetting and setting up, and incorrectly assuming that features of the programming environment conveyed information. We then describe how we addressed the mismatches by removing or adding functionality to the programming environment, adding signifiers, adapting the curriculum to include scaffolding related to the effectivities, or removing activities.

Cracking The Code: The Impact of Computer Coding on the Interactions of a Child with Autism

This paper reports on the communication patterns of two students in two settings: the elementary school classroom and the computer lab. One child was diagnosed with autism and the other was neurotypical. These students participated in a computer science curriculum designed for upper elementary school children (grades 4-5; ages 9-10), featuring block-based coding. The computer science instruction occurred in an inclusive general education setting. Analysis of video data revealed the child with autism communicated more (in terms of both total time speaking and interactions initiated) in the computer lab than was observed in the traditional classroom setting. Opposite trends were observed for the neurotypical child.

Fidgeting with Fabrication: Students with ADHD Making Tools to Focus

This paper describes the design process of 5 middle school students diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Students were tasked with designing and fabricating a personalized fidget---a small hand-held object to use in a classroom with the goal of increasing focus---by following the process of engineering design described in the Next Generation Science Standards. Students teamed with a local science museum to access tools and expertise. Analysis of student interviews and recorded design sessions revealed that students accurately defined the problem and design constraints. Further, despite issues in measurement precision, students successfully optimized their design solution over time through multiple rounds of revision.