Elementary

Computer programming for young children has grown in popularity among both education researchers and product developers, but still relatively little is known about how to assess and track young children’s learning through coding. This study presents an assessment tool to track Kindergarten through second grade students’ learning after engaging in a programming curriculum. Researchers worked with N=57 Kindergarten through second grade students over seven weeks to implement a curriculum using ScratchJr to introduce concepts of sequencing to create animated stories, collages, and games.

Automated assessment of student learning has become the subject of increasing attention. Students’ textual responses to short answer questions offer a rich source of data for assessment. However, automatically analyzing textual constructed responses poses significant computational challenges, exacerbated by the disfluencies that occur prominently in elementary students’ writing. With robust text analytics, there is the potential to analyze a student’s text responses and accurately predict his or her future success.

Many national initiatives in K-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education have emphasized the connections between teachers and improved student learning. Much of the discussion surrounding these initiatives has focused on the preparation, professional development, evaluation, compensation, and career advancement of teachers. Yet one critical set of voices has been largely missing from this discussion - that of classroom teachers themselves.

Biomechanics, and specifically the biomechanics associated with human movement, is a potentially rich backdrop against which educators can design innovative science teaching and learning activities. Moreover, the use of technologies associated with biomechanics research, such as high-speed cameras that can produce high-quality slow-motion video, can be deployed in such a way to support students’ participation in practices of scientific modeling.

This volume explores how technology-supported learning environments can incorporate physical activity and interactive experiences in formal education. It presents cutting-edge research and design work on a new generation of "body-centric" technologies such as wearable body sensors, GPS tracking devices, interactive display surfaces, video game controller devices, and humanlike avatars. Contributors discuss how and why each of these technologies can be used in service of learning within K-12 classrooms and at home, in museums and online.

Thinking critically. Communicating effectively. Collaborating productively. Students need to develop proficiencies while mastering the practices, concepts, and ideas associated with mathematics and science. Successful students must be able to work with large data sets, design experiments, and apply what they’re learning to solve real-world problems. Research shows that inquiry-based instruction boosts students’ critical thinking skills and promotes the kind of creative problem solving that turns the classroom into an energized learning environment.

The incorporation of engineering practices and core ideas into the Next Generation Science Standards at the elementary school level provides exciting opportunities but also raises important questions about the preparation of new elementary teachers. Both the teacher education and engineering education communities have a limited literature base on the resources that novice elementary teachers bring to learning and teaching engineering.

Problem scoping—determining the nature and boundaries of a problem—is an essential aspect of the engineering design process. Some studies from engineering education suggest that beginning students tend to skip problem scoping or oversimplify a problem. However, the ways these studies often characterize students’ problem scoping often do not reflect the complexity found in experts’ designing and rely on the number of criteria a student mentions or the time spent problem scoping.

Webinar Recording:
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