Programming as a Context for Making Problem Solving Visible: An Equity Focused K-5 Research Practice Partnership

STEM领域长期以来为解决问题的研究提供了富有成效的背景，这是21世纪世纪教育的中心学习目标。问题解决和相关的结构，如批判性思维和计算思维，越来越多地举行组织力量的设计和实施的K-12跨教育领域的课程。所有人的计算机科学：研究人员-实践者伙伴关系（RPP）计划正在支持这个项目，RPP团队由教师，校长，研究人员，专业发展领导者，课程开发人员和软件工程师组成，分布在洛杉矶的几个机构，包括三所小学公立和特许学校，加州大学，洛杉矶，以及一个开发CS课程和软件的非营利性社区学习中心。该项目的重点是如何有效地教问题解决的做法在第三-第四年级计算机科学类，即如何建立学生的能力，阐明他们的问题解决过程中，了解不同的策略如何推进解决问题，并制定和制定新的解决问题的策略。RPP将通过设计CS课程，促进对解决问题过程的持续，严格和协作反思，为传统上在城市环境中被边缘化的三年级和四年级学生提供解决问题的过程。这项工作将为有兴趣将问题解决与计算机编程结合起来的教育工作者提供宝贵的课程模板和研究成果，并为更大规模的研究与实践伙伴关系计划奠定基础。RPP的方法将解决关键的研究需求，以了解年轻学生如何在整个和小组课堂讨论的背景下思考和追求用代码解决问题，集中在从更广泛的研究文献中综合的问题解决方面：问题探索，目标设定，实施，监控和反思。课程设计者，研究人员和实践者的项目团队将通过多种数据来源获得信息：课堂实践的观察，教师访谈，设计师访谈，学校领导访谈和双月学生调查。他们将使用混合的设计方法，敏捷开发和设计研究猜想映射，以迭代和务实的目的，以促进丰富的课堂讨论CS问题解决过程。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

STEM domains have long provided productive contexts for problem solving research, a central learning objective in education for the 21st century. Problem solving and related constructs, such as critical thinking and computational thinking, are increasingly holding organizing power in the design and implementation of K-12 curriculum across educational domains. The Computer Science for All: Researcher-Practitioner Partnership (RPP) program is supporting this project, with an RPP team comprised of teachers, principals, researchers, professional development leaders, curriculum developers, and software engineers stretched across several institutions in Los Angeles, including three elementary public and charter schools, the University of California, Los Angeles, and a non-profit community learning center that develops CS curriculum and software. This project focuses on how to effectively teach problem solving practices in 3rd - 4th grade computer science classes, namely on how to build students' capacities to articulate their problem-solving process, understand how different strategies advance problem solving, and develop and enact new strategies for problem solving. The RPP will seed this problem solving process with 3rd and 4th graders traditionally marginalized in urban environments by designing CS lessons that promote sustained, rigorous, and collaborative reflection on problem-solving processes. This work will generate lesson templates and research findings valuable to educators interested in the intersection of problem solving and computer programming, and set the stage for larger scale research-practice partnership initiatives.The RPP's approach will address a critical research need to understand how young students think about and pursue problem solving with code in the context of whole- and small-group classroom discourse, focused around facets of problem solving synthesized from the wider research literature: problem exploration, goal setting, implementation, monitoring, and reflection. The project team of curriculum designers, researchers, and practitioners will be informed by multiple data sources: observations of classroom practice, teacher interviews, designer interviews, school leader interviews, and bi-monthly student surveys. They will use a blend of design methodologies, agile development and design-research conjecture mapping, to iteratively and pragmatically aim to foster rich classroom discourse on CS problem solving processes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.