There has been considerable interest in teaching "coding" to primary school aged students, and many creative "Initial Learning Environments" (ILEs) have been released to encourage this. Announcements and commentaries about such developments can polarise opinions, with some calling for widespread teaching of coding, while others see it as too soon to have students learning industry-specific skills. It is not always clear what is meant by teaching coding (which is often used as a synonym for programming), and what the benefits and costs of this are. Here we explore the meaning and potential impact of learning coding/programming for younger students. We collect the arguments for and against learning coding at a young age, and review the initiatives that have been developed to achieve this (including new languages, school curricula, and teaching resources). This leads to a set of criteria around the value of teaching young people to code, to inform curriculum designers, teachers and parents. The age at which coding should be taught can depend on many factors, including the learning tools used, context, teacher training and confidence, culture, specific skills taught, how engaging an ILE is, how much it lets students explore concepts for themselves, and whether opportunities exist to continue learning after an early introduction.

Should your 8-year-old learn coding?

In this paper, we present our experience in designing computing curriculum for Middle School students. Computing education is becoming an important part of STEM education and several national curriculums are incorporating computing education in their core curriculums. We design a curriculum that uses Alice -- an interactive drag-and-drop interface that provides a simple interface to learn programming concepts. Once the students are comfortable in these concepts, they take Python in higher classes to learn computing concepts in the context of a text-based programming language. This study attempts to provide "mediated transfer" for applying concepts learned in Alice, to programming in Python. We present the results of our study in applying this curriculum in a local school.

From Alice to Python. Introducing Text-based Programming in Middle Schools

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of project-based arduino educational robot applications on students' computational thinking skills and their perception of Stem skill levels. The study group consists of 6th grade students from 2 different secondary schools from Turkey. Within the scope of the research, classes were assigned to experimental and control groups neutrally. There are 15 students in the control group and 18 students in the experimental group. The experimental study continued for 11 weeks in both groups. In the experimental group, project-based arduino educational robot applications were applied in classes whereas in the control group, project development activities were carried out with block based programming tool. The research data were collected by using the computer-based skill level scale (α = 0.809) and the Basic STEM Skill Levels scale (α = 940). The mean, standard deviation, minimum, and maximum, Mann-Withney U tests were used for independent measurements and the associated measurements were performed on the collected data. At the end of the research, it was determined that activities based on block based robotic programming tool did not have a significant effect on both students' total scores of Stem skills and scores related to factors, but when computational thinking skills were analyzed, it was found that they contributed significantly more than the total score and problem solving factor based on block based programming tool.

/pdf/the-effect-of-project-based-arduino-educational-robot-mbt63gtvtu.pdf

The Effect of Project-Based Arduino Educational Robot Applications on Students' Computational Thinking Skills and Their Perception of Basic STEM Skill Levels.

Across the globe, it is now commonplace for educators to engage in the making (design and development) of embedded systems in the classroom to motivate and excite their students. This new domain brings its own set of unique requirements. Historically, embedded systems development requires knowledge of low-level programming languages, local installation of compilation toolchains, device drivers, and applications. For students and educators, these requirements can introduce insurmountable barriers. We present the motivation, requirements, implementation, and evaluation of a new programming platform that enables novice users to create software for embedded systems. The platform has two major components: 1) Microsoft MakeCode (www.makecode.com), a web app that encapsulates an entire beginner IDE for microcontrollers; and 2) CODAL, an efficient component-oriented C++ runtime for microcontrollers. We show how MakeCode and CODAL provide an accessible, cross-platform, installation-free programming experience for the BBC micro:bit and other embedded devices.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3299710.3211335

MakeCode and CODAL: intuitive and efficient embedded systems programming for education

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the Scratch and Lego Mindstorms Ev3 programming activities on academic achievement with respect to computer programming, and on the problem-solving and logical-mathematical thinking skills of students. This study was a semi-experimental, pretest-posttest study with two experimental groups and a control groups. A total of 75 students were divided among all three groups. Scratch-based game activities were applied to Study Group I. Lego Mindstorms Ev3-based design activities were applied to Study Group II. A C++ editor-based teaching activity was applied to the control group. The academic achievement test was developed within the scope of this study (Kr-20= 0.71). The Logical-Mathematical Intelligence Sub-Scale was used (Cronbach alpha is 0,925). Problem-Solving Inventory was used (Cronbach alpha is 0,86). Data was evaluated using frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, and Anova analyses. The educational program based on Scratch-related game activities made a more positive contribution to the logical-mathematical thinking skills of students than the educational programs based on Lego Mindstorms Ev3 design activities and traditional teaching activities, and this contribution was especially significant for the mathematical relationship factor.

/pdf/the-effect-of-scratch-and-lego-mindstorms-ev3-based-1wfgc9neaw.pdf

The Effect of Scratch- and Lego Mindstorms Ev3-Based Programming Activities on Academic Achievement, Problem-Solving Skills and Logical- Mathematical Thinking Skills of Students

Programming is known for its complexity and difficulty. It is believed to be hard to teach and to learn and many pupils and students in programming courses have difficulties to master all required competencies and skills. At introductory level of programming that problem is even more notable. There are different approaches to improve the dropout rate at programming courses and to populate programming. Recently, special visual environments for visual programming are being used. Early research results show that visual programming can be more efficient than classical textual programming, students can be more motivated, less bored and not burden with the syntax of programming languages. This paper discusses the visual programming environment Scratch as one of the newer environments for teaching and learning introductory programming. Although it is primarily aimed for school children aged 8 to 16, it can be used also at faculty level. Scratch was experimentally used in primary school for introductory programming, the results of which are presented in the paper. The emphasis of presented results is on retention of opinion and attitude after some time passed from formal using of Scratch. Results are complemented with the results from the same survey on students that also used Scratch.

Improving introductory programming with Scratch

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Improving introductory programming with Scratch