Till Örebro universitet

This study examines how a tinkering task in visual programming environments can provide opportunities for developing problem solving skills. We pursue this by analyzing eleven students in year 8 working with a tinkering task in a visual programming environment during a mathematics class. They were asked to create repeating patterns. Their work and discussions were analyzed through a lens of abstraction and decomposition, two elements of computational thinking. The analysis reveals how some students became thoroughly engaged in problem solving while others had a shallower experience of randomly manipulating the pre-made code. Since it was not the difficulty of the task but rather the random outcome of their manipulation of the code that determined whether they became engaged or not suggests that there is a need for support structures to fully tap into the potential of tinkering tasks to elicit problem solving.

Visual programming has become a popular way to provide young students with the opportunity to engage in complex problem-solving, often referred to as computational thinking. Most frameworks for computational thinking are comprehensive yet lack a fine-grained perspective on young students' engagement in programming. Therefore, this paper aims to unpack young students’ enacted problem-solving as they engage in open-ended programming in a visual programming environment (VPE). Through the lens of abstracting and decomposing, we contribute with a close-up understanding of how young students tackle complex problems in a VPE. Data generated in a Swedish first-grade classroom consisted of screen recordings and plans from 13 student pairs, working during four lessons to produce animated stories in ScratchJr. Through the analysis, six enactment patterns were constructed, showing that students as young as seven to eight years old can solve problems involving multiple components, arranging them into cohesive solutions. There were major differences in the problem-solving process involving whether or not the students followed their plans, captured in plan-driven and in-the-moment enactment patterns. Plan-driven enactment patterns elicited shifts within abstracting and decomposing practices, which we consider essential for programming since such enactment patterns more often elicit complex problem-solving. The results suggest that young students should be encouraged to use plans extensively when working in a VPE.

There is a lack of knowledge in research about the intersection between programming and mathematics in an educational context relevant to young students. This paper aims to contribute to the research field with a theoretical framework that captures this intersection. The intersection is explored by interpreting open programming tasks in a visual programming environment through the lens of Bishop’s six mathematical activities, resulting in a framework that shows how mathematical activities intersect with either a context-independent programming process or context-dependent programming processes.