NSF Awards: 1543175
Our work focuses on integrating engineering design practices and computational thinking activities into a 7-day integrated STEM+literacy unit for grades K-2 and promoting additional STEM+C learning through a complementary exhibit we developed and installed at our local science center. Our research demonstrates that children are capable of engaging in engineering design and computational thinking practices, and that the inclusion of interesting and compelling contexts can facilitate this learning.
Elizabeth Gajdzik
Assistant Director, INSPIRE
WELCOME
Thank you for taking the time to watch our video! Through our project, we have collected evidence that kindergarten through second grade-aged children are capable of engaging in computational thinking and engineering design, when they are in environments that support this. What other activities or environments also support computational thinking for children this age?
RESOURCES
PROJECT TEAM MEMBERS
Jeanne Century
DIrector of Research & Evaluation and Research Associate Professor
Hi Monica and Elizabeth -
So great to learn about your project. As it happens, I've been co-leading a project with Lisa Milenkovic in Broward County, FL doing similar work - integrating CS into Problem-Based integrated units - but for grades 3-5.
One of the things that has been terrific in our project is having research and evaluation components. I'd love to hear about how you are evaluating the project and some more details about the research.
I so appreciate this project for demonstrating what our youngest learners in elementary school can do!
Jeanne
Elizabeth Gajdzik
Assistant Director, INSPIRE
Hi, Jeanne.
The evaluation in our project is built in many layers. We have an advisory board of experts in their fields. Our research team is composed of several smaller teams such as informal learning, curriculum, assessment and professional development teams. These teams meet together on a weekly basis throughout the school year and monthly in the summer months to discuss our progress and to get feedback on our work. In the first year of the study we integrated computational thinking into the PictureSTEM curriculum (a research-based integrated STEM curriculum that makes extensive, authentic connections across STEM subjects while also connecting language arts) and developed a science center exhibit for learning engineering thinking and CT in an informal setting – our local science center. We collected data (work, video, audio, photographs, and debriefs) to ensure that we were creating training, curriculum, and an exhibit that were enjoyable and worthwhile experiences for educators, students and parents.
The project’s three overarching research questions are:
We have analyzed a subset of data to answer the research questions above. For example, we used video analysis to explore children’s engagement in computational thinking when interacting with the exhibit. Using discourse analysis and interaction analysis, we examined parental support in engaging children in computational thinking activities. Using artifact analysis, we analyzed children’s in-school worksheets to capture the evidence of computational thinking. We also conducted case study research to investigate computational thinking exhibited by children who participated in the curriculum activities and the science center activities. We do have a number of papers out that share some of our initial findings however we will spend the next year fully analyzing data from the last year of the study and writing papers to share additional findings.
I hope this answers your question, however if it doesn’t, please do not hesitate to ask followup questions. Thank you!
Levi Patrick
Mari Strand Cary
This is such a great project that builds on the curriculum that already exists. Thank you for this important work and for sharing it here. Can you speak a little more about the data pieces (e.g., the content of the in-school worksheets and whether tightly coupled to the lessons or whether had any degree of transfer)? One challenge with working with younger students in math (as with computer science and STEM) is showing that they've learned the content....they're aren't great measures out there so projects tend to make their own (but then these tend to be very proximal to the lessons taught).
Anna Hurst
"Too often, we underestimate what children are capable of doing." This is so true! Our My Sky Tonight team has spent the last 5+ years developing engaging, age-appropriate, science-rich astronomy activities for 3- to 5-year-old children. We heard skepticism from many colleagues when we first proposed the project. They believed that children so young were incapable of engaging with astronomical phenomena and concepts in meaningful ways, but we have proven them wrong!
I see parallels between our respective projects. Just as you defined a set of computational behaviors, we defined a framework of science practices, observed what it looks like for young children to engage in those practices, and then developed activities that supported those practices while remaining fun and developmentally appropriate.
Our project also involves professional development training workshops for the educators who received our toolkit of activities. How do you support educators in incorporating your activities and techniques in effective ways?
Thanks for sharing your interesting work! I hope you'll have a chance to check out our video as well!
Elizabeth Gajdzik
Assistant Director, INSPIRE
Hi, Anna.
For this particular research project, we supported educators in incorporating our curriculum and techniques in effective ways by:
I watched your video. I agree that there are parallels between our projects. I am not sure if our video makes this clear but we use fiction and non-fiction children's books as a way to introduce students to the STEM and CT concepts we teach in the units. Download the curriculum at www.PictureSTEM.org.
Anna Hurst
Levi Patrick
Anna Hurst
Thanks, Elizabeth.
Our training workshops also incorporated a lot of video footage of children engaged with our activities. These helped educators visualize how they might implement the activities, especially for those who were new to working with very young children. They also enabled us to illustrate some of the concepts we were discussing, such as how to engage children in certain science practices.
I look forward to taking a closer look at your curriculum. We are excited to do more work with storybooks as a component of our programs and are definitely on the look out for other work in this field.
Pablo Bendiksen
Research Assistant
Hi Elizabeth and Monica,
Firstly, thank you for a great video that jump-starts many of us into learning about your awesome research involving the integration of computational thinking into a STEM-centered curriculum for Kindergarten - 2nd graders. I appreciate you mentioning, as a post, some of the smaller-scale analytical procedures you've employed in order to address your three main research questions. May your analysis continue to prove generalizable.
I am curious about impact and effect measurement across longer periods of time! If the hope is to increase student participation in post-compulsory science courses (at the collegiate level), what steps are you taking to follow-up on kids' science interest and aspirations past the second grade?
Sincerely,
Pablo Bendiksen
Monica Cardella
Director, INSPIRE
Hi Pablo,
Thanks for watching our video and thank you for your comments and questions.
We are also very curious about how the work we do with K-2nd grade aged learners can have an impact over a longer timespan.
We do not yet have specific plans to continue to interact with the K-2nd grade aged children who have participated in this study, although a longitudinal study of this group would certainly be very fruitful.
We have, however, conducted a series of other studies of other groups of students. Morgan Hynes (Co-PI on this STEM+C project) and I are currently partnering with the National Society of Black Engineers and Virginia Tech to look at 3rd-5th graders’ STEM interests and engineering identities (two of the instruments we are using are the Engineering Identity Development Scale developed by Brenda Capobianco & the Fit of Personal Interests and Perceptions of Engineering Survey (F-PIPES) developed by Morgan as part of his CAREER grant). A few years ago I collaborated with WGBH Education Foundation and the Concord Evaluation Group on a three-year longitudinal study looking at how middle school students’ interests in engineering and engagement in informal engineering activities evolved from 6th grade to 8th grade (the Informal Pathways to Engineering study). We saw that most of our participants were already on an engineering pathway based on experiences they had prior to 6th grade, and the out-of-school activities that helped them stay engaged with engineering were activities that were not place or time constrained (activities like afterschool clubs often conflicted with other afterschool activities like sports, music, or faith-based activities).
We also know there is other research that draws on undergraduate students’ or practitioners’ reflections on the experiences that led to their interest in engineering/STEM. The Academic Pathways Study (form the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education) is one example.
So while it might be another 10+ years before we know what happens with the K-2nd grade aged children from our study, this collection of other studies gives us some insights into what pathways to and through engineering might look like!
We are certainly interested in suggestions for how we might further think about this too.
Thanks,
Monica
Levi Patrick
Assistant Executive Director
To everyone on your team, well done! Your team seems to have struck a nice balance between meaningful, on-grade science & engineering concepts and the structured play experiences we have come to expect in the early grades. Too often, examples of "STEM," in my view, overemphasize 21st-century soft skills and lack disciplinary connections.
I'm thrilled to see the students engaging in computational thinking and ABSOLUTELY love the reflections from the parent and teacher! As a math educator with some experience doing integrated math and science teaching, I'm left wondering more about how the STEM activities and lessons link to both disciplines? I think it was wise to build upon an existing integrated curriculum, but I want to know way more about the impact the activities had on math and science learning! :) Did the experiences impact math and science learning? I also wonder if they impact the teacher's views on the teaching and learning of math and science as stand-alone disciplines.
These questions may be beyond the scope of the work at this point, but I'd love to hear your conjectures, even if based on anecdotes. Either way, keep up the great work! I'm excited to follow your work now!
Thanks! _Levi
Monica Cardella
Director, INSPIRE
Hi Levi,
Thanks for your questions and comments!
While we have focused more on characterizing how the children engaged in our project are practicing computational thinking and engineering design than on capturing the impact of the integrated STEM activities on their math, science and literacy learning, we certainly do have evidence in the videos of children being able to practice and develop math, science, and literacy skills too. While our three-minute video gives you a snapshot of a few classrooms, we have collected videos of all 13 of the integrated STEM lessons that make up the units in 44 different classrooms (and with one homeschooling family). In the Kindergarten unit, children have gotten a chance to use pipettes to test what happens when different types of paper gets wet; they also explore other properties of different types of paper. The Kindergartners read “Pattern Fish” and practice patterns through the book, through worksheets developed for the curriculum, and as they are creating paper baskets to meet the design challenge of helping “Max and Lola” by developing a template for a basket that could be used to collect rocks at a local nature center. As the children explore paper materials and patterns they are learning science and math, but also learning how to use evidence to make engineering design decisions. As they explore patterns in the book and as they choose a pattern for the paper baskets they design, we believe they are engaging in an unplugged, Kindergarten version of the CT competency of pattern recognition/pattern generation.
One thing I would like to clarify is that the existing curriculum that we used for this project was developed by some of the Co-PIs/personnel on this project. Tamara Moore led the initial development of the PictureSTEM curriculum as part of her CAREER project, and in her earlier work she integrated science, engineering, math and literacy by giving children a rich design challenge (where an external client needed help from the students), choosing a series of books that would help children practice grade-level-appropriate literacy skills while also learning about science, math, and engineering that is relevant to the design challenge, and then developing STEM activities that help children learn STEM concepts. Our collaborator Kristina Tank who is at Iowa State played a large role in this process too.
I will share one anecdote with you too. Before we began this STEM+C project, my daughter experienced the PictureSTEM curriculum in her Kindergarten classroom. During that week she would come home talking about Max and Lola and the baskets that they were designing. A week or two later, her friend’s class started the unit. I caught snippets of conversation around “oh, you’re making baskets for Max and Lola now! You’re going to have so much fun!” Fast forward two year to second grade – she is working on a weaving project for Girl Scouts. “Mommy, this is just like when I was weaving the paper for the basket for Max and Lola and learning about patterns.” While that may not completely get at the question of how the curriculum impacted her math & science learning, it is a glimpse into the “stickiness” of the unit. The rich context, that involved helping someone else solve a problem that they had, stuck with her – and my conjecture is that it helped some of the other learning to “stick” too.
Take a look at the curriculum at PictureSTEM.org if you get a chance to see more of the science and math activities.
Meanwhile, we are continuing to explore additional grade-level-appropriate approaches for capturing how the integrated STEM+C +literacy curriculum promotes math and science learning. We are interested in any suggestions or feedback on this!
Thanks!
Monica
PS I don't yet have any insights on how the experiences or curriculum impacted the teachers' views on the teaching and learning of math and science, but I'll keep thinking about this too.
Alka Harriger
What an interesting project that's running in my backyard! I agree that when you give kids a chance to be challenged, they surprise you with what they can accomplish. You state that when kids are in environments that support CT, can you provide what that environment entails? How does one create such an environment? Is it physical attributes and/or emotional attributes?
I love the idea of the project you created to introduce the opportunity to the broader community! It's a great way of garnering parental, business, community support while showing them the possibilities of introducing CT in early grades.
Monica Cardella
Director, INSPIRE
Hi Alka,
Thanks for taking a look at our video and for helping us think about what we mean by “environments that support CT.”
I think that as we have talked about “environments that support CT” we have mostly thought about the “things” that are in an environment, the directions or instructions that are part of the environment, and the people that are in the environment. For example, we looked at how families might engage in computational thinking while responding to a design challenge that prompted them to design a playground for a puppy. In this environment there were big foam blocks that the families could move around and otherwise interact with, signage that presented the design challenge but also signage that defined and described computational thinking, and multiple family members that could support each other in engaging in CT. Parents might read the signage about CT then ask their children to think about how they could break the problem up into smaller parts (Problem Decomposition). Children might look at the shapes of the foam blocks and engage in Abstraction as they image how the block could be used for a particular piece of playground equipment. The design task explicitly prompted the families to think about patterns. In the classroom, the activities themselves, the manipulatives and the worksheets provided opportunities for the children to engage in CT, while the curriculum documents provided suggestions to the teacher for how to talk about or ask question to guide CT.
However, your question also makes me think that we should spend more time really thinking through this. For example, you also suggest that emotional attributes might be an important consideration in creating an environment that supports CT. We certainly believe in the power of creating an environment where it is okay to not get it right the first time. One of the books from the Kindergarten unit, “The Most Magnificent Thing,” was chosen to help children prepare for the possibility that the paper basket they have designed might not be the best design – it might rip and tear during testing (with dry and wet rocks) – and that is okay! There will time to redesign the basket, so it is okay if it didn’t turn out right the first time.
I’ll keep thinking about this – and would be happy to talk more!
Thanks again,
Monica
Jeanne Century
DIrector of Research & Evaluation and Research Associate Professor
It's so great to read the comments and see so much enthusiasm and support for the focus on young children. I'm very excited to watch the continuing work of this project!
Hoda Ehsan
Monica Cardella
Director, INSPIRE
Jeanne,
Jeanne, thanks much for all of your positive feedback!
We've really had a great time working on this project.
I want to give a quick shout-out to Connor Hage (one of our co-presenters). Connor is an undergraduate mechanical engineering student who has been working with INSPIRE. Connor is the artist who put our video together, helping us to tell the story of our project. We think he did a fantastic job with helping us to share our passion for this project with you all!
Lucy Davies
I think it shocks so many people that children as young as kindergarten are able to use CT and be effectively working through STEM curriculum. Students will surprise us everyday but sometimes we underestimate their ability. By teaching them these important skills we are preparing them for the future and opening them to endless possibilities. I loved this video and the work that your team is doing. My only question is how are the following grades after 2nd continuing to have STEM and CT implemented into the classroom? Does the curriculum scaffold beyond just K-2nd grade?
Monica Cardella
Director, INSPIRE
Hi Lucy,
Thanks for taking the time to watch our video & provide some feedback!
Right now the PictureSTEM curriculum is just grades K-2; however, we have thought about possibly extending up to 3rd/4th grade, as well as down into preK. We do know, too, that there are other groups already working on developing curricula or resources for 3rd grade & up, so we saw a focus on K-2 as a greater need.
As we have worked with our local community, we've presented workshops for teachers that cover a larger span than just K-2. We've also worked with our local science center, Imagination Station, and they in turn have brought STEM and CT activities to some of our local schools. We've also gotten a lot of feedback from the teachers that we are working with that they would like to have even more K-2nd grade activities for their classrooms.
Moving forward, our goal is to support teachers in being able to identify and develop high-quality STEM and CT activities so that they can use the PictureSTEM curriculum & other activities we've developed as part of our project but also bring in additional activities that fit their classes' needs. We are also interested in further exploring which other curricula and activities that other teams have developed might best complement our work so that we can point teachers to other resources.
Let us know if you have any other questions or comments!
Thanks!
Amanda Urey
What a great project! I love how the curriculum kits bring STEM and computational thinking into the everyday classroom. It is amazing how young students continually rise to the occasion and continue to impress us. As a first grade teacher, I would love to be using something like this in my classroom.
Monica Cardella
Director, INSPIRE
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for the positive feedback!
If you are interested in trying the first grade unit, you can find the full/detailed lesson plans on the PictureSTEM.org website. Within the first few pages you will see an overview that helps you get a sense of how much time each individual lesson takes and what materials are needed. Please let us know if you are interested in trying the curriculum and we can support you in any way! You can also learn more about the workshops we do at our website: https://engineering.purdue.edu/INSPIRE/Workshops
Thanks,
Monica
Pablo Bendiksen
Research Assistant
Monica,
Very valid point that it would be another 10+ years if we are to gauge a longitudinal effect for something like post-compulsory science interest on these K-2nd grade kids. Nevertheless I appreciate the commentary over distinct studies of yours that have guided your research with these kids. It's always important to learn a little more theory. That your instruments have been used with other school samples, presumably with measured changes in the direction you'd like to see, is a point of evidence towards their validity.
With respect to the Informal Pathways to Engineering study you've previously worked on, you found that most of your participants were already on an engineering pathway based on experiences they've had before the sixth grade. And that out-of-school activities that were not constrained in time or space also influenced this choice is great to hear about. These are the sort of findings that provide a basis for the need for STEM and Computer Science curriculums for younger students, as you've honed in on.
The continuation of the use of your instruments across studies and a focus on out-of-school STEM related activities are the only suggestions I can give thus far!
Monica Cardella
Director, INSPIRE
Thanks Pablo!
Happy to continue the conversation either virtually or in person at some point - I appreciate your comments & your focus on theory and sound research.
Sabrina Upcraft
I enjoyed learning about your project. I completely agree with your statement about how people often underestimate what our younger students are able to do. I also agree that they can do amazing things when provided with the right type of activities and environment for learning. I appreciate you providing the links to resources you referenced in the video. I am looking forward to looking at those more in depth. As a kindergarten teacher, I do understand the struggle of trying to figure out how to fit these types of activities into the day. As I have incorporated more STEM activities into my teaching, I have found that it is worth every minute we use. I think the neatest thing about these type of activities is that the children end up working on many skills at one time. I also appreciated your focus on introducing young children to engineering, computer science and computational thinking. I think it is great that you have found ways to introduce these ideas in more fun and interesting ways, like the science museum.
Monica Cardella
Director, INSPIRE
Thanks Sabrina!
Please let us know if you end up trying the Kindergarten unit, and if there is anything we can do to support you!
Nick C
I am excited to learn that your program and main initiative is to challenge educators to believe in their students at an early age. Believe that they can do engineering and computational thinking. I love the idea of coding and how you have taken the play piece and incorporated that into education by having students do coding as a means of learning engineering and computation thinking. Having children challenging themselves to solve problems can and will help them all along the way in their educational journey. As you mentioned, the ability for students to not only focus on one answer, but to understand that there are multiple ways to solve a problem is what we as educators are striving to help our students understand. What stood out to me is when you mentioned the idea that a preschooler, kindergartener and 1st grade students can computational thinking, engineering, or coding. I hear this conversation often that students are too young or don't understand, but your program can encourage and provide insight into how students learn. Most importantly yes children at an early age can do this. What have you found to be your greatest challenge when working with primary age children pertaining to coding? Do you believe that because of a vast array of available video games in electronics today that children these days have a better understanding of the idea of coding due to the exposer? Where do you hope to see your program in the future?
Monica Cardella
Director, INSPIRE
Hi Nick,
Thanks for the positive feedback!
I've been thinking about your question about what the greatest challenge has been working with children of this age, pertaining to coding. What comes to mind right now is that children of this age aren't always able to talk about what's happening inside their minds -- perhaps because they don't have all of the vocabulary to talk about the things that they are thinking about or perhaps because they aren't able to engage in metacognition the way that older children/adults might be able to. So from an education standpoint it can be challenging to guide them & facilitate their learning if it is not clear what is confusing or challenging. Likewise from a research perspective we have had to be cautious in how we talk about what we have observed. At times we have seen what looks like computational thinking, but we don't have evidence that the child realizes they are engaging in computational thinking. At other times we have watched children doing things where we can't tell if they are actually engaging in computational thinking vs. just playing, and when the child is able to describe or talk about what they are doing can that can help us to interpret what we've observed.
I'm also still thinking through your question about the impact of children's experiences with video games (or other devices -- cell phones, tablets, etc.). My sense is that there is an increased comfort with "playing with computers" that can help children be willing to experiment and try things out. I wonder too, though, if there could also be some possible drawbacks based on the familiarity of video games/computers/etc. I don't have a good thought-out explanation for what those drawbacks might be, but wanted to make sure I responded to your message before the video showcase closes!
Finally, with regards to where I hope to see our program in the future -- I am very interested in thinking through what this could look like in different contexts & with different populations. For example, how are the experiences of children with autism similar/different? (This connects to Hoda's dissertation interests). How can make sure this is culturally relevant? What are the experiences of children who live in rural areas and are economically disadvantaged? We also have been looking at the affordances of different types of cognitive devices that support children's computational thinking. Our teammates Sean Brophy & Tony Lowe have published some good papers on some of the other aspects of CT/programming that are helping us think about other next steps.
Let us know if you'd like to talk more!
Thanks,
Monica
Further posting is closed as the showcase has ended.