Children's Programming Learning Experience Research

Why teach children programming?On the one hand,the international community generally believes that education needs to cultivate innovative talents with computing capabilities in order to provide the impetus for the future innovation economy.Computing thinking,on the other hand,is not only regarded as the basic quality that everyone should have but also one of the indispensable skills for people to adapt to the 21st century.And programming education is an important way to cultivate children's computing thinking.However,which children should receive programming education?How should we teach children programming?How to embody the training goal of computing thnking in children's programming education?At present,these problems have not been well resolved.Because children's learning has its own characteristics,there is a difference in programming learning between children and adults.In general,children are more difficult to access programming knowledge at an abstract level,but rather experience the process and thought of programming in person.However,how do children experience it in programming learning?Understanding how they experience will help us bring them better programming education.The main question of this study is to explore how children are in the programming class.What kind of courses do we offer to children?How does a child's programming learning experience happen?Since these issues are all new issues emerging in the education with the development of the times and have certain exploratory nature,this study focused on children aged 10-12 years old as the main subjects of study.In the real programming learning situation,grounded theory is used to explore the process of children's programming learning experience.The main work of this study includes two parts:theoretical research and field research.In theoretical research,based on a review of the "Theory of Children's Learning and Development" and "Learning Paradigms of Learning Experience",literature research methods were used to review the existing research results of "children's programming learning".The study finds that the current research focus of "children's programming learning" is mainly on the concept of computational thinking,the practice of programming education,the evaluation of children's programming learning and the social prejudice of children's programming,etc.Besides,researchers also focus on the qualitative research results of children's programming learning,which lay a theoretical foundation for this study.Field research was conducted at three research sites in DPrimary School,J Primary School and PK Project Team in Jiangsu Province.In the research field,researchers used participatory observation and interviewing methods to collect materials such as teaching materials,teaching cases,teaching videos,observation records,teacher-student interviews,student assignments,and reflection records.While collecting data,the researchers conducted preliminary analysis of the data.In the process of continuous comparison,the cycle of data collection and analysis were performed.Furthermore,according to use the three-level coding method of grounded theory,the data from different sites were coded in stages and hierarchically,resulting in 156 concepts.These concepts were further conceptualized into 26 initial concepts,and 11 categories were obtained.In the Axis Coding phase,11 categories were linked and three main categories were obtained:understand children,design courses and experience programming.In the selective coding stage,after a continuous comparison between the data and the theory,a core category is derived:the mechanism of the children's programming learning experience,and then a theoretical model about the "generation process of children's programming learning experience" was created.Through the dialogues between data and data,data and theory,in conjunction with the contextual analysis of partial data,the fifth,sixth,and seventh chapters of this paper explain the relationship between the categories and categories of coding.The research results mainly include the following four aspects:First,from the data analysis,this study found three dimensions of understanding children who learn programing:culture,society,and classroom situations.The study finds that children's programming learners in the information age have a certain computer culture foundation.They are generally interested in programming learning and are willing to experience the programming process.However,due to the unequal access opportunities and gender bias,children's experience in the programming classroom is different.At this stage,whether in schools or outside schools,shallow programming experience activities for children do not satisfy the fundamental demands of programming learning to promote children's growth.Second,at this stage,children mainly engage in programming through curriculum activities.This study compares the regular school curriculum and the off-campus project-based curriculum collected at the research site to explain the current status of the implementation of the children's programming curriculum.By paying attention to the children's personal experience in programming learning,the teacher contributed to the dynamic changes in the process of interactive teaching experience,such as curriculum goals,implementation,and evaluation,making the children's programming education more practical.Third,in the context of real learning,the children's programming learning experience is holistic and dynamic in the time dimension.Programming learning is an activity that requires some intellectual input.The motivational mechanism of children's programming learning experience is influenced by two factors:interest and effort.The inherent interest of willpower participation can provide continuous motivation for the programming learning experience.In the aspect of the way of doing things,although children's programming learning activities always begin with hands-on experience,the practical experience must go through the reflection experience and rise to the value level to form a learning experience related to "self",in order to benefit children' growth.In the programming learning activities,children imitate and create,self-discovery and collaborative learning,so as to obtain an interactive learning experience at the social level,including the relationship experience with others and the value experience of will training.Fourth,the child's programming learning experience is a flow in the time dimension,presenting different levels of experience results at different stages.According to the development characteristics of children in primary school,it provides children with a learning environment that integrates computing and design,children will have a richer programmatic learning experience and a greater likelihood of learning results.In summary,this study shows that for children,programming learning is challenging.In the process of programming learning,children need to maintain a balance between interest and effort in order to overcome fearless emotions,continue to learn programming,and then gain rich learning experiences at multiple levels of cognition and value.Ideally,in order to acquire a holistic learning experience that promotes cognitive development and "self" growth,children with a programmatic learning motivation will actively participate in integrating programming and design programming learning activities,interacting with content and others in a moderately challenging task context,and conducting a series of reflective practice experiences.