Assessing teachers’ PCK to teach computational thinking via robotic programming

ABSTRACT

Recent years have witnessed an increasing emphasis on integrating computational thinking into school curriculums. This study deals with suggesting a course model including data collection tools for evaluating teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in teaching computational thinking via teaching robot programming. Taking the advantages of virtual educational robotics, the study addressed some steps to be used during the teacher training sessions. The results provide implications for educators who desire to provide training programs for teachers to prepare them to teach robotics. Using the suggested model, the instructional activities and the assessment tools will be structured for practitioners’ use.

KEYWORDS:

• Robot programming
• pedagogical content knowledge
• computational thinking
• virtual educational robotics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ünal Çakıroğlu

Ünal Çakiroğlu, PhD, is a professor at Trabzon University. His academic specialty is instructional technologies, teaching programming and robotics, and his research interests include online technologies, social networking in education, learning analytics, technology integration.

Servet Kiliç

Servet Kiliç, PhD, is an instructor at Ordu University. His academic specialty is instructional technologies, teaching programming and robotics, and his research interests include distance learning, and technology integration.