Abstract:

Computational thinking, defined as the ability to understand complex problems and effectively develop solutions to the problems, is an important skill needed for 21st century work and daily life. Many European curricula, for example, Spanish and Lithuanian curricula, have emphasised computational thinking as one of the most important skills to teach students. In addition, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has recently included computational thinking in its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) as part of mathematics literacy. In this paper, we describe our efforts to promote computational thinking in Finnish primary and lower secondary schools (Grades 1–9). We developed learning materials in a digital learning environment, which offers immediate feedback for students and comprehensive learning analytics for teachers from automatically assessed exercises. We first introduce computational thinking skills and summarise the current Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education (primary and lower secondary schools) in relation to computational thinking skills. Then, we introduce the new digital learning materials that we developed with some examples. Finally, we describe the development process and piloting of our learning materials with the pilot initial results. Therefore, this paper illustrates one practical educational solution developed based on curriculum analysis and pilot data.

Keywords:

Computational thinking, digital learning, curriculum, primary school, lower secondary school.