The scope of autonomy when teaching computational thinking in primary school

Journal article, 2019

During the 21st century, there has been an increased interest in the field of computational thinking as a consequence of the ever faster technical development. However, educating future generations in programming and computational thinking is not trivial. Many different platforms and teaching approaches can be used for this purpose. Inspired by the UK initiative with BBC micro:bit, this paper strives to identify what may be important to consider when designing teaching materials with the BBC micro:bit for training Swedish primary school learners’ computational thinking skills relating to mathematical and technical school subjects. This has been investigated in an iterative process, by conducting 21 workshops with the goal to support primary school teachers in developing BBC micro:bit teaching materials. The contribution of this paper is the Scope of autonomy model, which is based on the relation between learning potential, the risk of feeling overwhelmed, and the amount of choices provided in exercises. The model aim to support teachers in developing and appropriating material for teaching programming and computational thinking with individual progression in accordance with the new curriculum.