Digital Media and Parent/Child Engagement Resources to Increase Preschool Computational Thinking

该项目将利用故事的力量，通过制作动画和真人视频，结合联合媒体参与活动，为学龄前儿童及其父母教授基础计算思维（CT）概念。在年轻的时候接触CT对于让所有学生准备好参与几乎每个职业的核心技术至关重要。但是，尽管有这种公认的需求，很少有，如果有的话，资源(1)向幼儿介绍CT；(2)界定教学内容的范围；(3)提供基于证据的研究，探讨将CT引入学龄前儿童的有效策略。为了满足这些需求，WGBH和教育发展中心/儿童与技术中心（EDC/CCT）将利用迭代的研究和设计过程，为家长和学龄前儿童制作动画和真人视频，并结合联合媒体参与活动，名为“Monkeying Around”。动画视频将为孩子们示范如何引导他们的好奇心，集中探索解决问题的过程。真人视频将以真实的孩子和他们的父母为特色，并将进一步说明CT对解决问题的帮助。这些视频具有独特的视觉幽默和引人入胜的故事情节，旨在吸引父母与孩子一起观看。这一点很重要，因为家长将在指导孩子探索支持CT学习方面发挥重要作用。为了进一步促进媒体的联合参与，将在视频发布的同时开展实践活动。在创建这些资源之后，将进行一项实验性影响研究，以获取证据，证明这些资源是否以及如何鼓励幼儿计算思维的发展，并评估家长对这一主题的舒适度和兴趣。在这个基于设计的研究过程的同时，该项目将建立在国家早期教育和护理系统的基础设施（已获得Race to the Top赠款）和当地公共电视台的基础上，设计和开发一个接触父母的推广倡议。其他合作伙伴——国家妇女和信息技术中心、学校编程和code.org（它们都致力于推广CT）——将进一步帮助将这项工作推广到全国。家长/孩子参与数字媒体和动手活动能改善孩子的早期计算思维学习吗？为了回答这个问题，WGBH和EDC/CCT正在与孩子和他们的父母合作进行一个基于设计的研究过程，以创造猴子周围的连续互动。这项混合方法研究工作的首要目标是产生证据，支持围绕课程、教学和环境因素的建议，这些因素支持或阻碍儿童通过数字媒体观看和实践参与获得CT。在三年的时间里，EDC/CCT的研究人员将通过实施、观察、分析和修订的周期，与家庭和WGBH的发展团队密切合作，确定儿童如何学习CT的基础知识，某些学习任务如何展示儿童的理解，如何激发儿童对动手活动的兴趣，以及支持家长参与儿童CT发展的必要框架。研究的每个阶段都将提供丰富的反馈，为下一个内容开发周期提供信息，并将包括：第一阶段：制定三个学习蓝图（用于算法思维，排序和模式）；第二阶段：开发一套有凝聚力的学习任务，以提供学生学习的证据，以及制作数字媒体和家长/儿童参与资源的原型（算法思维）；第3阶段- A部分：原型的试点研究，修改，生产两个额外的原型（排序和图案）；第三阶段：B部分：三个原型和改版的试点研究；第四阶段：制作27部动画和真人视频和18项家长/儿童参与活动，并研究其影响。通过这一过程，项目团队将获得更广泛的知识，了解如何设计适合学龄前儿童发展的CT资源，并将获得有关如何激发动手活动兴趣的数据，以及支持家长参与儿童CT开发的必要框架。整个项目为WGBH和非正式STEM媒体领域提供了一个巨大的机会，让他们更多地了解媒体如何促进学前阶段的非正式CT学习，以及如何通过培养家长支持STEM学习的能力来扩大参与。该项目由推进非正式STEM学习（AISL）计划资助，该计划旨在推进非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。这包括提供多种途径，扩大STEM学习经验的获取和参与，推进非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究和评估，以及发展参与者对深度学习的理解。

This project will capitalize on the power of story to teach foundational computational thinking (CT) concepts through the creation of animated and live-action videos, paired with joint media engagement activities, for preschool children and their parents. Exposure at a young age to CT is critical for preparing all students to engage with the technologies that have become central to nearly every occupation. But despite this recognized need, there are few, if any, resources that (1) introduce CT to young children; (2) define the scope of what should be taught; and (3) provide evidence-based research on effective strategies for bringing CT to a preschool audience. To meet these needs, WGBH and Education Development Center/Center for Children and Technology (EDC/CCT) will utilize an iterative research and design process to create animated and live-action videos paired with joint media engagement activities for parents and preschool children, titled "Monkeying Around". Animated videos will model for children how to direct their curiosity into a focused exploration of the problem-solving process. Live-action videos will feature real kids and their parents and will further illustrate how helpful CT can be for problem solving. With their distinctive visual humor and captivating storytelling, the videos will be designed to entice parents to watch alongside their children. This is important since parents will play an important role in guiding them in explorations that support their CT learning. To further promote joint media engagement, hands-on activities will accompany the videos. Following the creation of these resources, an experimental impact study will be conducted to capture evidence as to if and how these resources encourage the development of young children's computational thinking, and to assess parents' comfort and interest in the subject. Concurrent with this design-based research process, the project will build on the infrastructure of state systems of early education and care (which have been awarded Race to the Top grants) and local public television stations to design and develop an outreach initiative to reach parents. Additional partners--National Center for Women & Information Technology, Code in Schools, and code.org (all of whom are all dedicated to promoting CT)--will further help bring this work to a national audience. Can parent/child engagement with digital media and hands-on activities improve children's early learning of computational thinking? To answer this question, WGBH and EDC/CCT are collaborating on a design-based research process with children and their parents to create Monkeying Around successive interactions. The overarching goal of this mixed-methods research effort is to generate evidence that supports the development of recommendations around the curricular, instructional, and contextual factors that support or impede children's acquisition of CT as a result of digital media viewing and hands-on engagement. Moving through cycles of implementation, observation, analysis, and revision over the course of three years, EDC/CCT researchers will work closely with families and WGBH's development team to determine how children learn the fundamentals of CT, how certain learning tasks can demonstrate what children understand, how to stimulate interest in hands-on activities, and the necessary scaffolds to support parental involvement in the development of children's CT. Each phase of the research will provide rich feedback to inform the next cycle of content development and will include: Phase 1: the formulation of three learning blueprints (for algorithmic thinking, sequencing, and patterns); Phase 2: the development of a cohesive set of learning tasks to provide evidence of student learning, as well as the production of a prototype of the digital media and parent/child engagement resources (algorithmic thinking); Phase 3-Part A: pilot research on the prototype, revisions, production of two additional prototypes (sequencing and patterns); Phase 3-Part B: pilot research on the three prototypes and revisions; and Phase 4: production of 27 animated and live-action videos and 18 parent/child engagement activities and a study of their impact. Through this process, the project team will build broader knowledge about how to design developmentally appropriate resources promoting CT for preschool children and will generate data on how to stimulate interest in hands-on activities and the necessary scaffolds to support parental involvement in the development of children's CT. The entire project represents an enormous opportunity for WGBH and for the informal STEM media field to learn more about how media can facilitate informal CT learning in the preschool years and ways to broaden participation by building parents' capacity to support STEM learning. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.