Teacher’s Role in Fostering Preschoolers’ Computational Thinking: An Exploratory Case Study

ABSTRACT

Research Findings: Computational thinking (CT), which is defined as the systematic analysis, exploration, and testing of solutions to open-ended and often complex problems, is an important skill to foster in early childhood. However, little is known about teachers’ role in fostering CT in early childhood classrooms. To address this gap, we conducted an exploratory case study to investigate how an exemplary teacher supported preschoolers’ CT learning in developmentally appropriate ways using an interactive programmable toy. We video recorded 12 weekly sessions of a small group of children and employed a hybrid approach—combining open coding and a priori coding based on standard definitions of CT—to analyze the data. Using one “telling” session to illustrate the findings, we discuss how the teacher employed a range of scaffolding strategies to support CT practices (e.g., problem reformation/decomposition, systematic testing, and debugging) and CT perspectives including communication, collaboration, and perseverance. Practice or Policy: Findings underscore the importance of providing professional support for teachers to engage preschoolers in CT learning.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Early childhood provision varies from country to country. In the United States, although the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) defines early childhood education (ECE) broadly as education of children ages 0–8, it is more common for ECE to be defined narrowly in terms of center-based care and education of children between ages 2 and 5 (i.e., prior to entering kindergarten). Since our study was conducted with preschoolers (ages 3–4) in a childcare center, the ECE or early childhood setting in this paper refers to the latter, narrower definition. However, given the extremely limited research literature on CT with preschoolers, we do cite CT research with kindergartners (ages 5–6) and even students from lower elementary grades (ages 6–8). In these cases, we list participants’ ages in the cited research.