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Getting Started in Teaching and Researching Computer
Science in the Elementary Classroom
Diana Franklin†, Charlotte Hill†, Hilary Dwyer‡, Ashley Iveland‡, Alexandria Killian‡,
Danielle Harlow‡
†Computer Science Department
UC Santa Barbara
{franklin, charlottehill}@cs.ucsb.edu
‡Gevirtz Graduate School of Education
UC Santa Barbara
{hdwyer, aockey, akillian,
dharlow}@education.ucsb.edu
ABSTRACT
The recent growth of interest in computer science has created a
movement to more readily introduce computer science in K-12
classrooms. However, little research exists on how to successfully
bring computer science to lower grade levels. In this paper, we
present advice for researchers and curriculum developers who are
getting started working with computer science in elementary
schools. Specifically, we focus on practical tips for studies of this
nature, developed from our experiences piloting a computational
thinking curriculum with 4th-6th grade students. We address issues
arising in elementary school classrooms such as recruiting and
interfacing with teachers and schools, classroom management
strategies, student computer literacy and developmental stages,
and curriculum life cycles.
Categories and Subject Descriptors
K.3.2 [Computer and Education]: Computer Science Education
General Terms
Design; Experimentation; Human Factors
Keywords
K-12; Outreach; Computer Science Education; Curriculum
1. INTRODUCTION
Recent efforts to expand the computer science field have led to a
variety of outreach programs and activities, many targeted at
underrepresented groups such as girls and students of color (e.g.
GirlsWhoCode, BlackGirlsCode, etc.). Since we know that eighth
graders’ interest in pursuing a career in science and engineering is
a strong predictor of whether or not they will later pursue a
science career [18], it follows that introducing students to
computer science in elementary school can increase the likelihood
that they will pursue careers that require computer science in the
future. But, bringing computer science to younger grades comes
with challenges. Though many K-8 teachers have added computer
science to their curriculum [1], they are unlikely to have had
formal training in how to teach computer science. In this paper,
we provide practical tips for people who are interested in teaching
computer science and who are creating material for computer
science curricula.
Developing computer science curricula requires knowledge of
computer science, understanding of how young children learn, and
awareness of how elementary school classrooms function. This
requires an interdisciplinary team of experts working together.
Computer scientists are needed to identify important computer
science content but are unlikely to have experience working with
schools, particularly with lower grade levels. Likewise, teachers
have extensive knowledge about children, but may be unfamiliar
with the content as well as the tools (computers and programming
languages). Education researchers bring relevant theory, research
methodology, and knowledge about how students learn, but they
may not have worked specifically computer science classrooms.
To this end, we combined our interdisciplinary experience with
research on this age group to compile a set of tips for those
seeking to create successful computer science experiences for
children.
We narrow our list and discussion to only those ideas most
important for getting started. For those familiar with university
level computer science teaching, we present nuances of how
elementary schools students differ from college students. For
those familiar with children and classrooms but not computer
science instruction, we present factors that distinguish computer-
based instruction from traditional classroom instruction.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. We provide
background on the educational environment of elementary schools
in Section 2, followed by a brief summary of related work in
Section 3. Section 4 summarizes our classroom experience.
Section 5 presents our tips, from preparation through classroom
teaching.
2. BACKGROUND
Recent trends in education have made it easier to introduce
computer science curricula in elementary school. The amount of
technology on school campuses has dramatically increased with
the demand of computer assessment practices. With the
implementation of Smarter Balanced Assessments, all U.S.
students will be required to take national standardized assessments
on computers [16]. Thus, many schools now have minimum
requirements for Internet bandwidth, operating systems,
keyboards, headphones, and screen size.
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SIGCSE’15, March 4–7, 2015, Kansas City, MO, USA.
Copyright © 2015 ACM 978-1-4503-2966-8/15/03…$15.00.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2676723.2677288
552
While the amount of technology present in schools has recently
increased, some argue that this does not necessarily indicate
meaningful student learning of computational thinking [7].
Students may spend computer lab time rehearsing multiplication
facts, playing math games, or playing games to increase the speed
and accuracy of their typing, activities that address skills other
than computational thinking. However, an increasing national
focus on computer programming has left many schools wanting to
integrate programming into computer lab time.
Another recent educational movement, the “Hour of Code” has
attempted to increase the amount of computer programming
present on K-12 school campuses [1]. Since December 2012, over
20,000 teachers from kindergarten to 12th grade have implemented
some type of computer programming lesson in their classrooms
[14]. This is made possible, in part, by student-friendly
programming interfaces such as Alice[8], Scratch[14], ScratchJr
(K-3)[9], and LaPlaya[12] that have made programming more
accessible to younger populations. The increased attention and
accessible avenues for coding have left teachers and
administrators eager for more curricula in this developing area.
3. OUR EXPERIENCE
We are developing, piloting, and evaluating a modular Scratch-
based computational thinking curriculum for upper elementary
school students. The curriculum consists of three types of
activities: (1) short, pre-populated projects that students can finish
within a lab period, (2) off-computer activities for the classroom
rather than a lab designed to relate computational thinking
concepts to every day life, and (3) an open-ended design-thinking
project. We implemented the first module during the 2013-2014
academic year. On-computer activities were completed in a
Scratch variant named LaPlaya [12] with a modified environment
that introduced only the concepts necessary for digital
storytelling: sequential execution, event-based programming,
initialization, message-passing, costume changes, and scene
changes. We modified the environment to hide blocks not
introduced in our lessons to maximize the short, computer lab
times (less than 45 minutes). Further modifications were
completed after the pilot study [12].
The curriculum was piloted in fifteen 4th – 6th grade classrooms at
five schools across California with over 400 students. We
performed a design-based research design study [2] in which we
collected data from each school and made changes (to the
curriculum, interface, or language) where deemed necessary.
The initial purpose of the data collection was to research students’
mental models of the concepts involved in the new curriculum.
To this end, we collected three types of data. First, in all
classrooms, our software collected snapshots of project data.
Second, in classrooms with direct observation, Graduate Student
Researchers (GSRs) took field notes as to what issues the students
encountered each session and why. Third, as students completed
projects, GSRs prompted the elementary school students by
asking them to share their work and explain what they did. The
elementary school students demonstrated and described their
programs in short videos collected on iPhones. Observation and
videos were used to identify potential problems, and analysis of
snapshots was performed to determine the prevalence of problems
(and therefore decide whether to make changes). Details of our
research study, data collection, and findings can be found in Hill
et al[12]. While our intended purpose was to explore elementary
student learning, we found that many of the challenges students
faced were due to factors related more to the environment than to
the concepts.
Table 1 shows selected demographics of schools that participated
in the pilot to demonstrate the different populations. We refer to
these schools as A, B, C, D, E, and F, with A being the first
school trial and F being the last. In schools B and E, we collected
only student project snapshots. In schools A, C, D, and F, we also
observed instruction and filmed students explaining their projects.
Each school had a varying number of classrooms, grades
participating, start dates.
Who was assigned to teach computing varied across schools. In
schools A, C, and D, individual classroom teachers taught their
own students. In school F, one 4th grade teacher taught computing
to all four 4th grade classes. In school B, a technology teacher
coordinated the program, but a team of parent volunteers with
programming experience taught the curriculum. School E had a
programming course taught by a dedicated technology teacher.
The schools also differed in the way students accessed the
curriculum. In school D, students had their computers on their
desks. All other classes went to a dedicated lab for their on-
computer activities.
Table 1. Participating school characteristics.
School
%
ELL
% Free/
Reduced
Lunch Classes Grade Observed
A23% 35% 2 4t
h
Yes
B2% 4% 4 4-5t
h
No
C43% 73% 1 4t
h
Yes
D82% 92% 2 4t
h
Yes
E10% 37% 2 6t
h
No
F32% 40% 4 4t
h
Yes
At the conclusion of the study, we interviewed each participating
teacher for suggestions on all aspects of the study, including the
curriculum, tools, and interfacing with our team.
The practical tips in this paper are gathered from our observations
and data, as well as previous research we used to design our
curriculum. The advice in this study can be roughly categorized
in three ways: (1) prior research we used when we designed our
curriculum that we found to be very successful, (2) advice
grounded in prior research that we were unaware of and only
discovered as a result of challenges that emerged during our pilot,
and (3) advice about situations we were very surprised by, and for
which we found no prior research providing solutions or advice.
4. PRACTICAL ADVICE
We start by providing recommendations about early stages of
preparation (choosing or developing an interface and language
and designing a curriculum), to interfacing with schools and
teachers, through delivering content in the classroom.
4.1 Language and environment
When teaching a text-based programming language such as C or
Java, choosing the programming environment and language are
often two completely separate decisions. For visual block-based
languages, a popular choice for elementary school students, the
553
environment and language are often entwined because the
environment is necessary to program. Therefore, the decision is
typically made together.
Choosing or creating the language and environment requires
special attention to the abilities of the target age group, in our case
4th – 6th grade. Most upper elementary school students have had
experience with computers, but vary widely in the amount and
type of computer experiences and comfort levels with the physical
tasks required by computing, such as typing or clicking and
dragging an object across the screen.
Choose a language that requires only content at or below target
grade level
Each school is accountable to state standards for math, literacy,
science and social studies. Many states have or are moving
towards standards that are aligned with the Common Core State
Standards (CCSS)[5,6]. Check the standards for the grade level
you are targeting to ensure using the programming language or
interface do not require knowledge of math or literacy content
above grade level. Math content is especially important:
percentages, negative numbers, and fractions are not covered until
3rd-6th grades [6,12].
Use drop-down menus in interfaces whenever possible
Because of the variability in typing skills, drop-down menus
should be used in lieu of typing whenever possible. Solomon
found spelling and typing difficulties to be common problems for
children aged 7-11[17]. Crook found that using the mouse and
joystick is much easier than typing for young children [4]. We
experienced similar challenges in our classrooms. Often students
struggled to type specific strings of characters correctly, leading
us to implement drop-down menus as often as possible.
Avoid downloading and uploading files from a shared computer.
Interfaces on browsers and modern operating systems are not well
designed for labs configured using identical, parallel file
structures for different students on the same computer. Because
the parallel file structures differ by only one directory, and this
directory may not be obvious in some views, we found this
resulted in two common difficulties. First, students sometimes
started from a previous student’s project rather than their own;
and second, they sometimes uploaded the other student’s project
rather than their own. This is because when opening a file or
uploading a file, the browser starts in the most recent location for
that application. In both cases, the file will be from the last person
who sat on the computer. Because the directories had the same
files in them, the students only noticed if he or she looked at the
folder name and recognized it as not his or her own student
number.
Choose between installation and connectivity-dependence
Most platforms are either installed (requiring downloads of
project material) or accessible through the browser (requiring
connectivity). This choice depends on the attributes of the target
computer environment. If connectivity is reliable and plentiful,
then an in-browser platform with files that are easy to locate could
be preferred. If connectivity is unreliable, then installing the
platform and uploading and downloading the files could be
preferred (just be careful about downloading as described above
and installation issues as described later).
Further Resources
For more information on the research in languages and interfaces
for children, consider looking at conference proceedings from
Interaction Design and Children (IDC), Innovation and
Technology in Computer Science (ITiCSE), Human Factors in
Computing Systems (CHI), and Special Interest Group on
Computer Science Education (SIGCSE).
4.2 Teacher and Student Materials
Once you have identified the language and environment, it is time
to choose or create a curriculum. If you are designing a
curriculum, there are several considerations to keep in mind.
Create an interdisciplinary team of computer scientists, education
researchers and teachers.
All three components - computer science researchers, education
researchers, and classroom teachers – are critical to designing a
curriculum. Computer scientists bring content knowledge,
education researchers bring research on how students learn, and
classroom teachers bring knowledge on how the curriculum will
fit into the current norms and expectations in the classrooms.
Reinforce, but do not depend on, other content knowledge
Our initial projects integrated subjects taught that year (e.g.
missions, California geography, physics [13]). We believed that
doing so would increase the value of the curriculum and help
teachers justify the time dedicated to it because computing is not a
required area of elementary school instruction. Our collaborating
teachers were also very positive about this idea. Unfortunately,
we found two drawbacks. First, teachers choose varying starting
times (early or late in school year) and paces (one 40 minute
session a week to two one-hour sessions a week). It is challenging
for a teacher to time the computer science content to match when
they present other material during the year. Second, projects that
depend on material from outside subjects make students’ success
contingent on material not related to computing.
Our solution was to integrate other content areas in ways that
reinforced the content, but did not require students to remember
any of the other content. For example, instead of providing a
planets project with no labels and asking students to fill in the
labels and “say bubbles”, we provided the planets project with
labels and had students fill in the “say bubbles” with those names.
That way, students can focus on programming without being
distracted or frustrated by their knowledge of outside subjects.
Limit or avoid use of student worksheets in computer lab
Although math and science activities require students to follow
written instructions from books or notebooks and write their
responses, written materials do not work as well alongside
computers. Depending on the lab configuration and students’
comfort with computer, it can be difficult to manage worksheets and
computer activities in the same space. If the lab is far from the
classroom, pencils and paper need to be transported back and forth.
Also, there may not be space between computers for students to
work on paper. Instead, worksheets can be filled out separately from
lab and then brought to lab if they are absolutely necessary.
Tailor writing in workshops to student needs
Students in 4th grade have learned to read, but there is great
variation at their comfort and speed when writing. If desired,
writing requirements can be limited by providing options to circle
words or answers, drawing pictures, or filling in the blank. Other
classrooms may want to use the computer time as an opportunity
to practice writing and would design more open-ended responses.
Show how your material links to standards in different content
areas
Elementary school teachers teach lessons across multiple content
areas within the span of a single day. Elementary teachers may
554
benefit from knowing how curriculum activities from the
computer science curriculum reinforce other topics. Consider
aligning your materials to content standards to increase available
time for computer science. For example, carefully chosen
reflection questions that require students to write in specific ways
can be designed to address literacy standards.
Provide one-page summary of activity for teacher.
Providing teachers a succinct description of the activity allows
teachers to quickly identify the information relevant to the lesson
while walking around and working with students at their
computers.
Further Resources
If you are interested in using an existing curriculum for this age
group, some free choices are CSTA, ScratchJr, ScratchEd, CS
Unplugged, KELP CS, and code.org.
4.3 Working with schools
In our project, we worked with a variety of schools, teachers,
students, and lab configurations. In this section, we present the
lessons we learned across our experiences in schools.
Finding schools partners is easier than you may think
Finding school partners can be daunting for computer scientists
without contacts with local schools. Education departments often
have existing relationships with local schools. In addition, we
found that schools and districts were eager to learn more. We
received e-mails from interested teachers and administrators
requesting to use our curriculum. Schools were interested in using
our computer programming curriculum during their lab time to
provide their students with opportunities to learn computer
science. Fifteen classrooms participated in the first year, and we
anticipate over fifty classrooms will participate in the second year.
Pilot with your own researchers teaching the curriculum
Computing curricula are complex, involving development
environments, languages, activities, and students. During the first
iteration, members of your team should teach so that you can
make rapid changes to any aspect of the environment. Schedule
teacher training after this initial pilot so that teachers are trained
on the revised material.
Know the context you will be working in
In preparation for teacher training, working with elementary
school students, or any other implementation, it is important to
figure out how and where the material will be taught. Classroom
technology and personnel teaching computer activities vary across
schools. In just our study, various combinations of classroom
teachers, dedicated technology teachers, and parent volunteers
taught computer labs. Moreover, reliable Internet and firewall
restrictions varied, as well as the types of devices students used
(netbooks, PCs, iPads).
Find out the process for installing and/or using computers
Using software on the web and installing software on the
computers may require school level or district permissions.
Procedures for granting permission differ across schools and
districts.. For web access, you need to learn whether there is a
firewall limiting access to websites. Students may not be allowed
to access Google or YouTube, so if you have video content, you
may need to house it yourself.
Installing software on lab computers has two barriers. The first is
obtaining permission for the software to be installed. The second
is performing the actual installation. In two of our participating
schools, the people responsible for installing software for the
schools were located off-site. This meant that there was a
considerable delay between the request to install software and the
actual installation. Any problems installing can result in additional
delays. In the other schools, our staff was responsible for
installing the software on every computer. Each change required
updating every computer.
4.4 In the classroom
Managing a class of 25-30 students on computers differs from
managing students working on paper and pencil tasks. It can be
challenging to keep everyone occupied while assisting individual
students. The following recommendations are intended to increase
student productivity in the classroom or computer lab. In addition,
we present different lab configurations we encountered and how
we worked with each.
Bookmark web locations for students
As discussed earlier, typing a url is difficult for young students.
On the first day, we helped students bookmark important locations
for our project.
Use a mouse, not just a laptop touch pad
Younger students may still be developing the manual dexterity
required for clicking and dragging objects, especially when using
touch pads. There are two separate problems associated with this.
The first is that a student who is trying to click may instead trigger
a drag of a very short distance. The second is that a student may
have difficulty holding down the button while simultaneously
dragging.
We identified two solutions. The first is to provide a mouse for
every student so they do not depend on the touch pad. If this is not
possible, students who have trouble dragging can use two hands.
The pointer finger on one hand clicks the button while the pointer
finger on the other hand glides across the touch pad.
Create a supportive collaborative environment
Research on college-level pair programming courses found that
mixed-gender pairs were the least harmonious, and females had
complaints about gender bias [3]. This might be due to a
combination of stereotypes and different communication patterns
[10]. We observed similar patterns in the elementary classroom:
when girls asked a boy for assistance, the boy sometimes took
over and fixed it for the girl rather than explaining the concept to
the girl. Therefore, we suggest that students be physically next to
someone of the same gender or someone with whom they work
well. For example, if students are seated linearly, four boys can
be seated in a row, then four girls, etc. If students are seated in
pairs, students could be paired with a student of the same gender.
Use hands-free visual aid for students to request assistance
When students need help and raise their hands, they are unable to
make progress. In order to provide you a clear visual cue and
allow students to continue working, you can use visual aids such
as red and green paper tents.
Students can create paper tents by placing a green paper on top of
a red paper and folding them in half, making a tent with a green
paper on the outside and red on the inside. The students keep the
green paper on the outside to signal that they are working
successfully. When they need help, they place the red on the
outside and on top of the monitor, providing a visual cue to the
teacher that they request assistance, but leaving their hands free to
continue working.
555
Use sticky notes on monitors to indicate completed students
If students are working on a short, skill-building exercise, then
visual cues are also useful to indicate who has completed the
exercise. For example, in our curriculum, when students complete
the pre-populated projects, they place a sticky note on their
monitor and play in “sandbox” area. Placing a sticky note on the
monitor allows teachers to easily see who has finished and moved
into the “sandbox” or bonus area.
Include bonus options
Students work at different speeds. When students finish the
assignment at different times, early finishers may be bored and
ready for additional challenges. We found three categories of
“bonus” options to be useful. First, the curriculum can provide
extra, optional, more challenging tasks for those who finish early.
Second, instructors can pose challenges for existing projects such
as completing programming tasks with fewer instructions, with a
wider variety of instructions, or adding “bells and whistles” to the
project. Finally, students can go to a separate, open-ended
activity, either within the environment (such as the sandbox in
KELP CS) or a separate environment (Scratch project).
Create student experts
Teachers and researchers can use elementary school students as
resources for their peers for basic computing issues. In one of our
classrooms, the principal had trained small groups of 4th graders in
every class to serve as computer ambassadors. These ambassadors
learned basic computing and computer knowledge around the
school’s new netbooks. We found that these student experts
helped immensely in managing basic technology concerns such as
where to find files, typing websites, and general use of their
classrooms computers. As a result, teachers and researcher had
time to address more conceptual issues. Moreover, the student
ambassadors took pride in being classroom resources, and many
of their peers were more comfortable getting help from them than
other adults in the room.
Create hands-free attention signal
Elementary school teachers often use a signal to get students’
attention, such as having students raise one hand with a peace
symbol or repeat a phrase after the teacher. When in a computer
lab, use a signal that requires students to use both hands so that
students remove their hands from the keyboard. Examples are
placing both hands behind the neck, clapping, or wiggling their
fingers
Turn off monitors or close laptops during discussions,
demonstrations, and directions.
Because computer screens are dynamic and engaging, they
compete for students’ attention during group activities when
students are requested to listen to the teacher or a peer. Turning
off the monitor removes this competition.
Have students direct their chairs to the teacher or gather in the
middle of the room on the floor during group time.
Even if the computers are closed or screens turned off, students
may have difficulty watching demonstrations if their chairs are
not turned towards the teacher. Bringing the students together
removes them from the computer work, allowing them to focus
more on group time..
Analysis and tips for specific configurations
During our pilot study, we encountered three classroom
configurations used in the computer labs. Here, we provide
discussion of the pros and cons in each of these configurations
along with tips to handle any drawbacks.
Figure 1: Computers arranged in groups
One arrangement was computers arranged in table groups (Figure
1). This arrangement encouraged students to work together and
share ideas. One needs to consider how to group students. Placing
students with similar skill levels can help teachers provide
targeted support to groups while placing students in mixed ability
groupings can facilitate peer support. How well students are
comfortable assisting their peers will depend on existing
classroom norms. This configuration is challenging for full-class
demonstrations, so consider have the “front” of the classroom be
to the side of everyone, have students turn their chairs, or
assemble students away from the tables for presentations.
Figure 2: Computers arranged in rows
The second arrangement was computers arranged in rows (Figure
2). This arrangement facilitates students’ view of a teacher in the
front of the room allows students to work with their neighbors.
Because students look over their screens at the board, it is
especially important to have them turn off their monitors during
group demonstrations.
Figure 3: Computers arranged around perimeter
The third arrangement was computers arranged around the
perimeter of the classroom (Figure 3). This provides easy access
for the instructor to see all of the monitors, but it is very hard for
the students to see the instructor. It is imperative that the students
turn their chairs for group demonstrations.
556
4.5 Providing Feedback
Specific and timely feedback has been shown to increase learning
and retention [8]. For this age group, the way you determine
correctness and the way you express feedback is critical,
especially given the variability of comfort with the material. This
feedback can be given verbally by in-class instructors or
programmed into the programming or project environment (if
supported).
Be flexible about your definition of “correct.”
Elementary school students are still developing their reading
skills, so having very precise instructions to lead students to a
single right answer may not be successful. Instead, look at the
overarching goals of the project and develop a broad definition of
what it means to succeed at these goals.
Be careful about the wording of your feedback.
The majority of elementary school students are new to computing.
When they struggle at learning, they may believe this is because
they are not good at computing, rather than attribute their
difficulties to learning something new. Critical language can
reinforce possible preconceived notions that they are not meant
for computing. For example, in our feedback we adopted the
wording of “You are not finished yet” rather than “The answer is
incorrect.”
5. CONCLUSIONS
Working in elementary schools is incredibly rewarding:
elementary school teachers and students are enthusiastic, and
there is the opportunity to make significant contributions through
curriculum development or implementation. Working in
elementary school classrooms, however, differs from outreach
activities – there is more time involved, elementary school
teachers may be less comfortable with the material than dedicated
outreach providers, and attendance is compulsory rather than
voluntary Therefore, it is critical that everyone involved be
careful about the languages, development environment,
curriculum, and classroom atmosphere. We found that
establishing a collaborative team consisting of computer
scientists, teachers, and educational researchers facilitated
success.
6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work is supported by the National Science Foundation
CE21 Award CNS-1240985.
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