so that students with no programming background can produce complete and exciting games in a short amount of time while still moving on a gradual trajectory to the creation of highly sophisticated games. Scalable Game Design has a uniquely low threshold for teachers and students making game design accessible across gender and ethnicity. We have developed a professional development program based on approximately 35 contact hours in which we train teachers to have students build their first playable game from scratch in about a week (for example, 5 lessons x 45 minutes). The ability to create a playable game is essential if students are to reach a profound, personally changing “Wow, I can do this” realization.

On the right side of the figure, zones of motivation are delineated based on challenge versus skills. These zones are Anxiety, Zone of Proximal Development, Flow, and Boredom. In middle schools we have found the path called Project-First is significantly more effective than paths relying on learning many principles first without the presence of a concrete and interesting challenge. The Project-First path maneuvers students into the Zone of Proximal Development where, with proper support, they quickly learn relevant CT concepts. Motivational levels, as measured by the expressed interest to continue with similar classes, are extremely high: 74% for boys and 64% for girls; and 71% for white and 69% for minority students. In most schools these are not self-selected students. While there are no well-established baselines, our teachers considered a desire by one-third of their students to continue a success.

Education: Build computational
instruments that analyze student-
produced projects for CT skills so that
learning outcomes can be objectively
measured. These outcomes include
learning trajectories and transfer of CT
concepts from game design to simula-
tion building. What do students really
learn? While CT definitions are still
somewhat forthcoming, one school
director created a succinct statement
of expectation—“I would want to walk
up to a student participating in game
design and ask: Now that you can make
space invaders, can you also make a
science simulation?” This question of
transfer should be at the core of com-
putational thinking education. If stu-
dents learn to build a game but have
no notion of how to transfer their skills
into science simulations, then game
design has no educational justification
for being in a curriculum. We devised
the Computational Thinking Pattern
Analysis2 as an analytical means of ex-
tracting evidence of CT skill directly
from games and simulations built by
students. Most excitingly, this lets us
go beyond motivational research and
study the educational value of game
design, including the exploration
of learning trajectories and transfer
from game design to STEM simulation
building. To enable this transfer, the
professional development of teachers
stresses these computational thinking
patterns as a means of promoting CT.

Conclusion

We believe we have found a systemic strategy for integrating CT education in middle schools in a way that exposes a large number of students and is appealing to girls as well as to underrepresented students. The Scalable Game Design project will continue as an NSF Computing Education for the 21st Century (CE21) project to advance a research based framework for broadening participation. We invite interested schools to participate.

 

this work is supported by the national Science foundation under grant numbers 0848962, 0833612, and 1138526. any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the national Science foundation.

References

1. computer Science teachers association (cSta) board of directors. Achieving Change: The CSTA Strategic Plan, 2008.

2. ioannidou, a., bennett, V., repenning, a., koh, k., and basawapatna, a. computational thinking patterns. Paper presented at the 2011 annual Meeting of the american educational research association (aera) in the symposium “Merging human creativity and the Power of technology: computational thinking in the k– 12 classroom” (apr. 8–12, 2011, new orleans, la).

3. ioannidou, a., repenning, a. and Webb, d. agentcubes: incremental 3d end-user development. Journal of Visual Language and Computing (2009).

4. repenning, a., and ambach, J. tactile programming: a unified manipulation paradigm supporting program comprehension, composition, and sharing. in Proceedings of the 1996 IEEE Symposium of Visual Languages, (boulder, co, computer Society), 1996, 102–109.

5. Webb, h. injecting computational thinking into career explorations for middle school girls. in Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, VL/HCC ’ 11, (Pittsburgh, Pa, Sept. 2011), ieee computer Society, los alamitos, ca.

6. Webb, d.c., repenning, a., and koh, k. toward an emergent theory of broadening participation in computer science education. acM Special interest group on computer Science education conference, (SigcSe 2012), (raleigh, north carolina, feb. 29–Mar. 3, 2012).

Alexander Repenning ( [e-mail]) is a computer science professor at the University of colorado, a member of the center for lifelong learning and design at the University of colorado, and the founder of agentSheets inc.