Abstract:

Computational Thinking (CT) has been referred as an important competence or skill that all 21st century citizens should develop. CT activities can promote the development of the competences related to problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity. According that, computer science and, in particular, programming or coding have been integrated in the primary and secondary schools’ curriculum in many countries around the world. In Portugal the recent curriculum changes have made programming and CT compulsory for pupils in primary and secondary education and suggests the use of robot as strategy to improve the development of CT skills. The national curriculum integrates a subject in the computer science area, in each grade between the 5th and 9th grades, taught by a computer science teacher. In primary grades, from 1st to 4th, computer science and CT are part of other disciplinary areas (Maths, Portuguese, Sciences) and curricular guidelines should be implemented in a multidisciplinary way. To become a computer science teacher in primary and secondary education, it is compulsory to attend a master’s degree in computer science education. This paper reports a pedagogical activity developed with computer science student-teachers of a Master’s degree in teaching computer science at the University of Lisbon. With this activity we aimed to develop computational thinking skills in the students-teachers through learning scenarios with robots. In this paper two learning scenarios designed by the student-teachers, using robots with different typology, was presented as well as the programs and algorithms implemented. We provide a brief analysis of the Key dimensions involved in the two learning scenarios as they were observed. The results show the affordances and possibilities of using learning scenarios with robots as structuring resources to improve the development of computational thinking skills in computer science teacher education.

Keywords:

Computer Science Education, Computational Thinking, Learning Scenarios and Robots, Programming.