Abstract:

The world is increasingly experiencing a growing integration of digital technologies across all sectors of society. This calls for our future generations of citizens to be nurtured into creative problem solvers who can see the world through a computational lens. Many countries around the world have recognised the importance of Computational Thinking (CT) and have been implementing curriculum changes to integrate the development of these skills into education. In Malta, CT is not directly mentioned in the National Curriculum and this has led to a scarcity of initiatives. However, where present, the approach to the integration of CT in Maltese schools is rather piecemeal and unstructured. This paper reports on the implementation efforts of a CT curriculum in one local primary school in Malta. The aim is to provide an overview of the new curriculum, its goals and objectives. It also discusses the implementation process, and reports on initial data collected after the first year of implementation. Ultimately, results from this study can serve as a model for the proliferation of the integration of CT across more schools in Malta and elsewhere.

Keywords:

Computational thinking, curriculum design, early years education, Maltese education.