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Frogs to Think with: Improving Students' Computational Thinking and Understanding of Evolution in A Code-First Learning Environment

Authors:

Sharona T. Levy,

Michael S. Horn,

Uri WilenskyAuthors Info & Claims

IDC '16: Proceedings of the The 15th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children

Pages 246 - 254

https://doi.org/10.1145/2930674.2930724

Published: 21 June 2016 Publication History

Abstract

This paper presents Frog Pond, an interactive code-first learning environment about biological evolution. We deployed Frog Pond as part of a six-day curricular unit on natural selection implemented in six 7th grade science classes. Here we describe a case study of two students, Charlie and Aaron who participated in the unit. Comparing pre- and post- interviews in which they were asked to design a program for a hypothetical simulation of evolution, we found that both students shifted from an event-based programming approach to a rule-based approach. Both students also drew upon their experience with Frog Pond to explain an evolutionary phenomenon. However, the level of sophistication of the two students' explanations varied along with the aspects of Frog Pond they drew upon. These findings have implications for design improvement to better support students' understanding of evolution.

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Cited By

Christensen DLombardi D(2024)Computational thinking through the lens of biological evolution learning: enhancing understanding through the levels of biological organization and computational complexityEvolution: Education and Outreach10.1186/s12052-024-00202-317:1Online publication date: 24-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12052-024-00202-3
Aslan UHorn MWilensky U(2024)Why are some students “not into” computational thinking activities embedded within high school science units? Key takeaways from a microethnographic discourse analysis studyScience Education10.1002/sce.21850108:3(929-956)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21850
Baykal GEriksson ETorgersson O(2023)Assessment of learning in child–computer interaction researchInternational Journal of Child-Computer Interaction10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.10057836:COnline publication date: 1-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.100578
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Frogs to Think with: Improving Students' Computational Thinking and Understanding of Evolution in A Code-First Learning Environment
1. Human-centered computing

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

IDC '16: Proceedings of the The 15th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children

June 2016

774 pages

ISBN:9781450343138

DOI:10.1145/2930674

Conference Chairs:
Janet C. Read
University of Central Lancashire, UK
,
Phil Stenton
BBC Research & Development, UK

Copyright © 2016 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 21 June 2016

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Refereed limited

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National Science Foundation

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IDC '16

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SIGCHI

IDC '16: Interaction Design and Children

June 21 - 24, 2016

Manchester, United Kingdom

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IDC '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 36 of 77 submissions, 47%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 172 of 578 submissions, 30%

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Cited By

Christensen DLombardi D(2024)Computational thinking through the lens of biological evolution learning: enhancing understanding through the levels of biological organization and computational complexityEvolution: Education and Outreach10.1186/s12052-024-00202-317:1Online publication date: 24-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12052-024-00202-3
Aslan UHorn MWilensky U(2024)Why are some students “not into” computational thinking activities embedded within high school science units? Key takeaways from a microethnographic discourse analysis studyScience Education10.1002/sce.21850108:3(929-956)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21850
Baykal GEriksson ETorgersson O(2023)Assessment of learning in child–computer interaction researchInternational Journal of Child-Computer Interaction10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.10057836:COnline publication date: 1-Jun-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.100578
Eriksson EBaykal GTorgersson O(2022)The Role of Learning Theory in Child-Computer Interaction - A Semi-Systematic Literature ReviewProceedings of the 21st Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference10.1145/3501712.3529728(50-68)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3501712.3529728
Lukkarinen ALehtinen THaaranen LMalmi L(2021)An Event Listener or an Event Handler?Proceedings of the 21st Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research10.1145/3488042.3488051(1-10)Online publication date: 17-Nov-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3488042.3488051
Lukkarinen AMalmi LHaaranen L(2021)Event-driven Programming in Programming EducationACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/342395621:1(1-31)Online publication date: 16-Mar-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3423956
Levy S(2020)Learning about Complex Systems from the Bottom UpDeep Learning and Neural Networks10.4018/978-1-7998-0414-7.ch092(1650-1671)Online publication date: 2020
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-0414-7.ch092
Pierson ABrady C(2020)Expanding Opportunities for Systems Thinking, Conceptual Learning, and Participation through Embodied and Computational ModelingSystems10.3390/systems80400488:4(48)Online publication date: 26-Nov-2020
https://doi.org/10.3390/systems8040048
Aslan ULaGrassa NHorn MWilensky URubegni EVasalou AParés NSawhney N(2020)Phenomenological programmingProceedings of the Interaction Design and Children Conference10.1145/3392063.3394428(299-310)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3392063.3394428
Christensen DLombardi D(2020)Understanding Biological Evolution Through Computational ThinkingScience & Education10.1007/s11191-020-00141-7Online publication date: 22-Jul-2020
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-020-00141-7
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