short-paper

Improving Scratch Programming with CRC-Card Design

Authors:

Sebastian Keller,

Neil Walkinshaw,

Korbinian Otto,

Barbara SabitzerAuthors Info & Claims

WiPSCE '19: Proceedings of the 14th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

Article No.: 19, Pages 1 - 4

https://doi.org/10.1145/3361721.3362114

Published: 23 October 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Scratch and other block-based programming environments are popular and successful in engaging young learners with basic concepts of programming. It is common, and intentional, that programming with Scratch is done using an explorative "tinkering" approach, where blocks are selected from toolboxes and assembled. However, this type of bottom-up programming behaviour is generally associated with code quality issues, makes it difficult to create more complex programs, and may impede the learning of fundamental concepts. In order to investigate whether a more structured approach is feasible, we adapted the object-oriented design methodology of CRC cards (class-responsibility-collaboration) to Scratch programs, such that learners first plan the central aspects of their programs (i.e., the sprites and their interactions), before writing the code. We applied this methodology in the context of a pilot study with two school classes to investigate how this affects the students and their resulting projects. The results of this initial investigation suggest that students are not deterred by the additional design work, and we observed a slight improvement in the completeness and correctness of the resulting programs.

References

[1]

Efthimia Aivaloglou and Felienne Hermans. 2016. How kids code and how we know: An exploratory study on the Scratch repository. In ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research. ACM, 53--61.

Digital Library

[2]

Michal Armoni. 2013. On teaching abstraction in CS to novices. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching 32, 3 (2013), 265--284.

[3]

David Bau, Jeff Gray, Caitlin Kelleher, Josh Sheldon, and Franklyn Turbak. 2017. Learnable programming: blocks and beyond. Commun. ACM 60, 6 (2017), 72--80.

Digital Library

[4]

Kent Beck and Ward Cunningham. 1989. A laboratory for teaching object oriented thinking. In ACM Sigplan Notices, Vol. 24. ACM, 1--6.

Digital Library

[5]

Jürgen Börstler and Carsten Schulte. 2005. Teaching object oriented modelling with CRC cards and roleplaying games. In Proceedings WCCE, Vol. 5.

[6]

Ira Diethelm, Leif Geiger, and Albert Zündorf. 2005. Teaching modeling with objects first.In Proceedings of the 8th World Conference on Computers in Education.

[7]

Felienne Hermans and Efthimia Aivaloglou. 2016. Do code smells hamper novice programming? A controlled experiment on Scratch programs. In Int. Conference on Program Comprehension. IEEE, 1--10.

[8]

Orni Meerbaum-Salant, Michal Armoni, and Mordechai Ben-Ari. 2011. Habits of programming in scratch. In 16th Annual Joint Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education. ACM, 168--172.

Digital Library

[9]

Orni Meerbaum-Salant, Michal Armoni, and Mordechai Ben-Ari. 2013. Learning computer science concepts with Scratch. Computer Science Education 23, 3 (2013), 239--264.

[10]

Mitchel Resnick, John Maloney, Andrés Monroy-Hernández, Natalie Rusk, Evelyn Eastmond, Karen Brennan, Amon Millner, Eric Rosenbaum, Jay Silver, Brian Silverman, and Yasmin Kafai. 2009. Scratch: Programming for All. Commun. ACM 52, 11 (2009), 60--67.

Digital Library

[11]

Kathryn Rich, Carla Strickland, and Diana Franklin. 2017. A literature review through the lens of computer science learning goals theorized and explored in research. In ACM SIGCSE. ACM, 495--500.

[12]

Emmanuel Schanzer, Kathi Fisler, and Shriram Krishnamurthi. 2013. Bootstrap: Going beyond programming in after-school computer science. In SPLASH Education Symposium.

[13]

Carsten Schulte, Johannes Magenheim, Kathrin Müller, and Lea Budde. 2017. The design and exploration cycle as research and development framework in computing education. In 2017IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON). IEEE, 867--876.

[14]

Carsten Schulte, Johannes Magenheim, Jörg Niere, and Wilhelm Schäfer. 2003. Thinking in objects and their collaboration: Introducing object-oriented technology. Computer Science Education 13, 4 (2003), 269--288.

[15]

David Statter and Michal Armoni. 2016. Teaching abstract thinking in introduction to computer science for 7th graders. In Proceedings of the 11th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education. ACM, 80--83.

Digital Library

[16]

David Statter and Michal Armoni. 2017. Learning abstraction in computer science: A gender perspective. In Proceedings of the 12th Workshop on Primary and Secondary Computing Education. ACM, 5--14.

Digital Library

[17]

Peeratham Techapalokul and Eli Tilevich. 2017. Understanding recurring quality problems and their impact on code sharing in block-based software. In IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC).

[18]

Jane Waite, Paul Curzon, William Marsh, and Sue Sentance. 2018. Comparing K-5 Teachers' Reported Use of Design in Teaching Programming and Planning in Teaching Writing. In 13th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education (WiPSCE '18). ACM, Article 4, 4:1--4:10 pages.

Digital Library

[19]

David Weintrop and Uri Wilensky. 2017. Comparing block-based and text-based programming in high school computer science classrooms. ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE) 18, 1 (2017), 3.

Cited By

Dúo-Terrón P(2023)Analysis of Scratch Software in Scientific Production for 20 Years: Programming in Education to Develop Computational Thinking and STEAM DisciplinesEducation Sciences10.3390/educsci1304040413:4(404)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2023
https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13040404
Gotz KFeldmeier PFraser G(2022)Model-based Testing of Scratch Programs2022 IEEE Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST)10.1109/ICST53961.2022.00047(411-421)Online publication date: Apr-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICST53961.2022.00047

Index Terms

Improving Scratch Programming with CRC-Card Design
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Software engineering education
      2. K-12 education

Recommendations

The Scratch Programming Language and Environment

Scratch is a visual programming environment that allows users (primarily ages 8 to 16) to learn computer programming while working on personally meaningful projects such as animated stories and games. A key design goal of Scratch is to support self-...
A Pedagogical Review of Programming Education Research: What Have We Learned

Previous research has shown that especially novice students may find learning programming to be difficult in terms of programming concepts and program design. Many students fail to write correct program codes after the course and achieve the level of ...
Motivating Adult Learners by Introducing Programming Concepts with Scratch
ECSEE '20: Proceedings of the 4th European Conference on Software Engineering Education

Block-based programming languages like Scratch are popular for introducing children to programming. As programming is becoming an increasingly desired skill in almost every working environment, a growing number of adults are seeking to learn basic ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

WiPSCE '19: Proceedings of the 14th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

October 2019

127 pages

ISBN:9781450377041

DOI:10.1145/3361721

Copyright © 2019 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]

In-Cooperation

GI: Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V.
University of Glasgow: University of Glasgow

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 23 October 2019

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Short-paper
Research
Refereed limited

Funding Sources

Conference

WiPSCE'19

WiPSCE'19: 14th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education

October 23 - 25, 2019

Scotland, Glasgow, Uk

Acceptance Rates

WiPSCE '19 Paper Acceptance Rate 23 of 43 submissions, 53%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 104 of 279 submissions, 37%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

2
Total Citations
View Citations
179
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)12
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1

Reflects downloads up to 14 Dec 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Dúo-Terrón P(2023)Analysis of Scratch Software in Scientific Production for 20 Years: Programming in Education to Develop Computational Thinking and STEAM DisciplinesEducation Sciences10.3390/educsci1304040413:4(404)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2023
https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13040404
Gotz KFeldmeier PFraser G(2022)Model-based Testing of Scratch Programs2022 IEEE Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST)10.1109/ICST53961.2022.00047(411-421)Online publication date: Apr-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICST53961.2022.00047

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents