Abstract:

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to take its toll worldwide, school systems provide continuous instruction via remote and hybrid learning modes. In this fluid environment, the regular challenges of fostering 21st century skills such as computational thinking (CT), have become even more complex. To foster critical thinking the Israeli ministry of education has recently elevated its expectations from computer science (CS) instruction in elementary schools to integrate CT skills.

The main challenges facing the education system in this regard are:
1) teachers are unfamiliar with CT
2) the number of qualified teachers in CS is insufficient
3) teachers need a different pedagogy to guide large classroom-levels in remote learning.

Thus, educators in social distancing periods have an especially difficult problem: to overcome the above issues. Some innovative methods of teaching and learning were introduced and applied to achieve the appropriate results. This paper presents one of them which explores a creative cross-curriculum CT-CS-Science course and reports the course results.

The course was administered in a distant learning format using the guided discovery learning pedagogy. This pedagogy combines pointing the way to problem-solving by a guide to discover facts, relationships, and solutions by students themselves. Accordingly, the research questions are: How do young students engage in a multidisciplinary course based on the guided discovery learning pedagogy in remote learning settings? How are students’ computational thinking performance and science understanding reflected using this approach?

This intervention research of a teacher-guided, cross-curricular course was conducted remotely during school hours. 276 students of 12 years of age elected to participate. Each of the ten schools in Israel nominated a teacher with no CT nor CS experience to guide them. The course was administered one hour a week for 28 weeks. Using the Zoom meeting tool the students split into online breakout rooms where they worked in groups as they solved problem-based tasks. The modules consisted of an increased degree of difficulty in CS and involved learning four CT skills: Abstraction, Decomposition, Algorithm design, and Pattern recognition. The final module instructed students to model and simulate a real-world phenomenon to demonstrate how sinkholes are formed using an agent-based modeling practice. The learning tasks were created by a group of professional teachers and the researchers and published on an online website.
The research was conducted with a quasi-experimental method using pretests and posttests, artifact-based interviews, and project evaluations. Results indicate that the students improved their CT skills and enhanced their science understanding.

Students deserve engaging, relevant remote learning applications advancing critical thinking. Many agree that remote learning is needed regardless of COVID-19; thus, we encourage further research of methods for remote learning in education that fosters 21st century skills such as CT. Emerging from this global pandemic with a stronger public education system is an ambitious vision which can be achieved using creative cross-curriculum courses that foster critical thinking.

Keywords:

Remote learning settings, computational thinking, computer science, guided discovery learning.