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Research on Practice Using STEM Inquiry
The project will research the results of integrating scientific inquiry and computational thinking in elementary schools, focusing on grades 2-5. The need for strengthening computational thinking within STEM education is now recognized as an important priority, but computational thinking receives little attention in our nation's classrooms. Most resources like this to date have been seen as add-ons to the curriculum and have not been widely adopted. In collaboration with teachers, the project will create exemplar lessons that will embed computational thinking in scientific inquiry rather than teaching it as an isolated topic. In intensive summer workshops and afterschool meetings during the academic year, teachers will be engaged in their own adult-level computational thinking and scientific inquiry, to help them develop their own sense of what scientific inquiry and computational thinking are. Starting with the exemplar lessons, the project will work with the teachers to iteratively modify, implement, and refine those lessons.

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Featured Content

Computational Thinking in Elementary Classrooms: Measuring Teacher Understanding of Computational Ideas for Teaching Science
"A number of efforts have focused on preparing teachers to integrate CT within secondary disciplinary subject areas; however, there is little research on how CT ideas could be embedded within…

Project Contributions

Computational Thinking in Elementary Classrooms: Measuring Teacher Understanding of Computational Ideas for Teaching Science
"A number of efforts have focused on preparing teachers to integrate CT within secondary disciplinary subject areas; however, there is little research on how CT ideas could be embedded within…