Collaborative Research: Scaffolding Pre-service, Early Childhood Teachers to Debug Block-based Programming

以探究为导向的方式吸引早年级学生学习STEM内容是具有挑战性的。其中一种方法是让学生与机器人一起参与戏剧表演和其他以学生为中心的幼儿教育方法。编程，以及由此产生的调试，对于控制机器人运动的能力至关重要。它还有助于培养解决问题的能力。指望低年级学生在没有一个有能力和自我效能感的老师的帮助下获得这些技能是不合理的。在这个为期三年的合作研究项目中，这个改善本科STEM教育（IUSE）探索和设计项目将原型化和研究策略的有效性，以帮助学前教育，幼儿教育教师学习调试基于块的编程。通过这样做，该项目有可能邀请绝大多数女性（幼儿教育职前教师）参与计算机科学，这是一个女性代表性严重不足的领域。它也有可能对来自资源匮乏环境或少数民族背景的学生的早期计算机科学教学产生积极影响——这是社会公正和确保未来计算机科学劳动力尽可能广泛的人才库的一个非常重要的目标。这与美国国家科学基金会IUSE项目的目标一致，该项目旨在加强学前、幼儿教师的STEM教育过程和成果，这些教师通常受到STEM教育准备不足的影响。具体的项目目标是(a)确定阻碍职前幼儿教师成功和有效调试的动机和认知挑战的性质，以及(b)将脚手架技术与特定的学习者特征相匹配，以促进职前幼儿教师成功和有效的调试。为了实现这些目标，项目团队将进行5项研究——(1)对阻碍职前幼儿教师成功和高效调试的认知和动机挑战进行探索性研究，(2)对探索性研究（包括本项目之前的试点研究）和参与者群体进行元综合，(3)对脚手架元分析数据集和原型脚手架策略进行数据挖掘，（4-5）脚手架原型的实现研究。此外，项目团队将通过研讨会和网络研讨会向(a)大学教育工作者和(b)通过发表同行评审的期刊文章向STEM教育研究人员传播结果。这项重要的工作得到了IUSE项目和Robert Noyce教师奖学金项目的资助。

Engaging early grades students with STEM content in an inquiry-oriented manner is challenging. One way in which this can be done is by having students participate with robots in dramatic play and other student-centered approaches to early childhood education. Programming, and, by consequence, debugging, is critical to the ability to control robot movements. It also contributes to the development of problem-solving skills. It is unreasonable to expect early grades students to gain these skills without being helped by a teacher who has the ability and self-efficacy to engage in debugging. In this three year, collaborative research project, this Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) Exploration and Design project will prototype and research the effectiveness of strategies to help pre-service, early childhood education teachers learn to debug block-based programming. In so doing, the project has the potential to invite members of a population that is overwhelmingly female (early childhood education pre-service teachers) to participate in computer science, a field in which women are drastically under-represented. It also has the potential to positively influence the teaching of computer science in the early grades among students who are from low-resourced settings or from ethnic minority backgrounds - a very important goal for both social justice and ensuring the widest possible talent pool for the computer science workforce of the future. This aligns with the goals of NSF's IUSE program in that it seeks to enhance STEM education processes and outcomes among pre-service, early childhood teachers, who often suffer from weak STEM education preparation.The specific project aims are (a) to determine the nature of the motivational and cognitive challenges that impede successful and efficient debugging among pre-service early childhood teachers, and (b) match scaffolding techniques with specific learner characteristics to promote successful and efficient debugging among pre-service early childhood teachers. To address these aims, the project team will engage in 5 studies - (1) an exploratory study of cognitive and motivational challenges that impede successful and efficient debugging among pre-service early childhood teachers, (2) meta-synthesis of exploratory studies (including pilot studies prior to this project) and clusters of participants according to challenges, (3) data mining of a scaffolding meta-analysis dataset and prototyping scaffolding strategies, and (4-5) implementation studies of scaffolding prototypes. Furthermore, the project team will disseminate results to (a) university educators through workshops and webinars, and (b) STEM education researchers through publication of peer-reviewed journal articles. This important work is supported with funding from the IUSE program and the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program.