As mankind gradually enters the era of AI, computational thinking(CT) is become the core quality of future citizens. Situational constructivism (Papert, 1991)theory emphasizes in a technical resources rich environment, students build computing works through operation and collaboration, thereby developing logical thinking and problem solving abilities. Based this theory, our study explores the impact of matching teaching models and course contents on CT development of middle school students, to provide theoretical and practical support for global CT education. Our study combines flipped learning and lecture teaching modes to verify the effectiveness of different teaching models on CT.

The study involved 354 eighth-grade students from a public middle school in an Eastern City of China. The course content covered the programming language Python, which divided into practical courses and theoretical courses. The experiment lasted for one month, before and after that students were tested for Computational Thinking test(Román-González et al., 2017) . This research divided the subjects into 4 groups according to the research assumptions: matched group, unmatched group, all lecture teaching group and all flipped learning group. Specifically, matched group received lecture teaching when teaching theoretical courses and received flip teaching in practical courses, and unmatched group was opposite.

The results showed that students in the matched group gained significantly higher CT scores than those in other three groups, F(353)=22.534, p<.001. This result confirms our hypothesis, so teachers need to flexibly adjust teaching methods based on the teaching content to effectively improve students’ CT in classrooms.

Authors:
Tiantian Hou, Beijing Normal University, China

About the Presenter(s)
Tiantian Hou is a graduate student in Education from China, focusing on computational thinking education, including assessment and teaching practices. Her current project explores innovative approaches to enhance computational thinking in middle scho

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