Research on Practice Using STEM Inquiry Embedded with Computational Thinking in Elementary School

该项目将以2-5年级为重点，研究小学科学探究与计算思维融合的结果。在STEM教育中加强计算思维的必要性现在被认为是一个重要的优先事项，但计算思维在我们国家的课堂上很少受到关注。到目前为止，像这样的大多数资源都被视为课程的附加内容，并没有被广泛采用。在与教师的合作下，该项目将创建范例课程，将计算思维融入科学探究，而不是将其作为一个孤立的主题来教授。在密集的夏季工作坊和学年的课后会议中，教师将从事他们自己的成人水平的计算思维和科学探究，帮助他们发展自己对科学探究和计算思维的理解。从范例课程开始，项目将与教师一起迭代地修改、实现和完善这些课程。该项目研究将调查这种方法如何以及在多大程度上提高教师和随后的学生对计算思维和探究的理解（通过他们已经开发的课程）。该项目将直接影响到3所学校的20名教师和1000多名学生。由此产生的综合课程和教师专业发展模式将在研究人员和教师的专业会议上广泛传播。本探索计划所建立的整合课程与教师专业发展模式，将会进一步推广。计算已经成为现代科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域日常实践中不可或缺的一部分。因此，STEM+计算伙伴关系（STEM+C）计划寻求推进新的方法，并以证据为基础的理解，将计算整合到STEM教学和学习中。该项目将研究计算思维教学的有效性，将其嵌入到科学探究的过程中，而不是分别教授编码和计算思维，然后将其强加于科学探究。该项目不直接教授编程，而是引入可用于探究过程的计算思维方式，如算法思维、问题分解、流程图、调试、循环等。该项目将研究原型课程是否支持综合计算思维和探究，课程如何影响学生对计算和科学探究的看法，以及教师专业发展活动如何改善他们的计算思维并影响他们的课堂实践。这项研究将使用多种研究技术，包括有声思考访谈、调查、课堂视频分析、课堂观察和现场笔记。

The project will research the results of integrating scientific inquiry and computational thinking in elementary schools, focusing on grades 2-5. The need for strengthening computational thinking within STEM education is now recognized as an important priority, but computational thinking receives little attention in our nation's classrooms. Most resources like this to date have been seen as add-ons to the curriculum and have not been widely adopted. In collaboration with teachers, the project will create exemplar lessons that will embed computational thinking in scientific inquiry rather than teaching it as an isolated topic. In intensive summer workshops and afterschool meetings during the academic year, teachers will be engaged in their own adult-level computational thinking and scientific inquiry, to help them develop their own sense of what scientific inquiry and computational thinking are. Starting with the exemplar lessons, the project will work with the teachers to iteratively modify, implement, and refine those lessons. The project research will investigate how and to what extent this approach enhances teacher and subsequent student understanding (through the lessons they have developed) of computational thinking and inquiry. The project will directly impact 20 teachers in 3 schools, and over 1000 students. The resulting model of integrated curriculum and teacher professional development will be widely disseminated at professional conference for researchers and teachers. The model of integrated curriculum and teacher professional development developed by this exploratory project will be developed for potential future scale-up. Computing has become an integral part of everyday practice within modern fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). As a result, the STEM+Computing Partnerships (STEM+C) program seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the integration of computing in STEM teaching and learning.The project will research the effectiveness of teaching computational thinking by embedding it in the process of science inquiry rather than teaching coding and computational thinking separately and then imposing that on science inquiry. Instead of directly teaching coding, the project will introduce computational ways of thinking, such as algorithmic thinking, problem decomposition, flowcharts, debugging, loops, etc., that can be used in the inquiry process. The project will research if the prototype curriculum supports integrated computational thinking and inquiry, how the curriculum influences student perceptions toward computing and science inquiry, and how teacher professional development activities improve their computational thinking and influences their classroom practices. The research will use a variety of research techniques, including think-aloud interviews, surveys, analysis of classroom video, classroom observations and field notes.