Programming Practice Using Scratch for Each Grade of Elementary School
A method of teaching programming at elementary school is required. Scratch can easily practice the programming. This paper presents teaching materials by grade level using Scratch. For first graders, it is a teaching material for exercises of mouse operation. For second graders, it is a teaching material for exercises of keyboard operation. Third graders perform typing operations in Roman or English. Fourth graders create a program that tackles sequential processing. Fifth graders create a program that involves iterative processing. Sixth graders create a program that involves conditional branches and iterations. Each is combined with many subjects of art, music, national language and arithmetic. These materials were used in classroom practice with many teaching assistants. It is designed to be performed in 45 minutes. This paper also presents the results of classroom practice using these materials.
Developing Computational Thinking in the Classroom: A Framework
Computational thinking sits at the heart of the new statutory programme of study for Computing: “A high quality computing education equips pupils to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world” (Department for Education, 2013, p. 188). This document aims to support teachers to teach computational thinking. It describes a framework that helps explain what computational thinking is, describes pedagogic approaches for teaching it and gives ways to assess it. Pupil progression with the previous ICT curriculum was often demonstrated through ‘how’ (for example, a software usage skill) or ‘what’ the pupil produced (for example, a poster). This was partly due to the needs of the business world for office skills. Such use of precious curriculum time however has several weaknesses. Firstly, the country’s economy depends on technological innovation not just on use of technology. Secondly, the pace of technology and organisational change is fast in that the ICT skills learnt are out of date before a pupil leaves school. Thirdly, technology invades all aspects of our life and the typically taught office practice is only a small part of technology use today.
The Effectiveness of Two Approaches to the Teaching of High School American History
The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of studies in depth utilizing selected materials which had been developed for teaching high school American history.