Abstract:

Currently, South Africa is joining the rest of the world in prescribing curricula dealing with Coding and Robotics for Grades R to 3 – learners ages 5-9 (Department of Basic Education, 2021a). This paper aims to look at how Coding and Robotics should be approached for young learners from the perspective of a developing country. This content domain forms an important part of the STEM field of education. The Department of Basic Education has indicated that the Coding and Robotics subject is central to function in a digital and information-driven world; apply digital ICT (Information and communication technology) skills and transfer these skills to solve everyday problems in the development of learners. It is concerned with the various inter-related areas of Information Technology and Engineering. The subject studies the activities that deal with the solution of problems through logical and computational thinking. In light of the above, the curriculum for Coding and Robotics in South Africa Phase has been divided into five learning areas namely Pattern Recognition, Algorithms and Coding, Robotics Skills, Internet and e-communicating and Application Skills (Department of Basic Education, 2021b).

The development of the proposed curriculum and content for coding and robotics however require a huge amount of resources and skips out on the importance of learners developing underlining skills as needed pre-knowledge. Koumara and Plakitsi (2017) argue that in order to create scientific knowledge or scientific inquiry, teachers need to foster scientific processes in combination with scientific reasoning and critical thinking. Teachers also need to make learners aware that there is no singular scientific method with specific steps that need to be followed in scientific inquiry (Koumara & Plakitsi, 2017). Taking into consideration the aim of the Coding and Robotic curriculum and current research on how learning takes place in the early years, this paper proposes utilising a theory called play-worlds. Hakkarainen, Brėdikytė, Jakkula and Munter (2013) reveal that play-worlds derive from Vygotsky’s theory on play. Educational free play takes place with minimal interference from teachers (Hakkarainen et al., 2013). A play-world, however, aims to create an imaginary world that learners and teachers share when they interpret and dramatise a theme in the classroom (Lindqvist, 1995). This means that play-worlds are unique in the sense that they give the pedagogical role to the teacher, which actively supports imagination and has, in turn, been shown to develop children’s imaginative play (Hakkarainen et al., 2013).

Furthermore, Futschek and Moschitz (2010) states that algorithmic thinking is an important process of Coding and Robotics for the young learner and that this should be reduced to a level that learners can understand. They indicate that learning coding through activities rather than computers, which are very complex tools for learners to understand, seems to be more appropriate for the nature of the learners’ development and the educational process in the early years (Futschek & Moschitz, 2010). Activities that use concrete objects, can make it easier for learners to convert physical-world logic into programme logic, by using physical objects and by being involved in the process (Metin, 2020). For this reason, it is important for children to learn to code without computers.

Keywords:

Developing country, Coding and Robotics, Curriculum, Play-worlds, educational resources, early years learning.