An Empirical Study Of Unplugged Computer Science Activities Promoting Computational Thinking Development In Upper Grade Students In Rural Primary Schools

The information society requires digital citizens to have the literacy of calculation thinking.At present,researchers around the world pay close attention to the cultivation of k-12 learners' computational thinking.In China,computational thinking has been listed as the core accomplishment of information technology discipline.At home and abroad,the current mainly through computer programming to train the computational thinking of learners,but there are still many regions and countries in the world with backward economy,serious lack of educational resources,unable to train the computational thinking of learners through the Internet,computer.In view of this,some foreign researchers proposed to promote the development of computational thinking of learners in these regions by means of "computer science unplugged activities".Therefore,on the basis of combing and analyzing how computer science unplugged activities abroad promote the development of learners'computational thinking,from the perspective of activity theory and collaborative learning theory,this paper analyzes the factors of computer science unplugged activities and their relations,and constructs the model of the factors of computer science unplugged activities.On the constructivism learning theory,piaget's cognitive development theory and the "learning by doing" Dewey,under the guidance of education theory combined with the activities of the basic elements design unplugged.In addition,the experiment of "computer science unplugged activities" was carried out in the upper grade of rural primary schools to cultivate the computational thinking of learners,which provides a certain reference for the development of the computational thinking of learners in the regions with backward economic conditions and lack of educational resources.At the theoretical level,it enriches and develops the theoretical research on cultivating learners' computational thinking,and provides reference for the design of unplugged activities.On the practical level,it is of great practical significance to promote the development of students' computational thinking through "computer science unplugged activities" in the environment without computers and other hardware and software equipment,and to cultivate students'computational thinking in regions with backward economic conditions and lack of high-quality teaching resources.The research process of this paper mainly includes five parts:literature review and analysis,activity design,activity implementation,activity effect analysis,summary and prospect.In the literature review and analysis stage,through the literature analysis method of computational thinking at home and abroad and the computer science unplugged literature carding analysis respectively,then how to foreign through computer science unplugged activities to promote the development of learners' computational thinking,analyzing literature summarizing foreign computer science activities cultivate learners based on unplugged computational thinking strategies,tools,effects,etc.,designed to provide support for follow-up activities.In the stage of activity design,eight elements of computer science unplugged activities are firstly extracted according to activity theory and collaborative learning theory,and the relationship model of activity elements is constructed.Secondly,based on piaget's theory of cognitive development stage,the characteristics of learners are analyzed,and the objectives,contents and environment of activities are analyzed.Finally based on the principles of unplugged activities of design,based on the five skills of computational thinking,element relationship model based on activity,in reference to foreign relevant unplugged activities,on the basis of the content,activities,tasks,activities,activities,tools,etc design in two stages of the junior and senior unplugged computer science activities.In the implementation stage,a quasi-experimental research was carried out in a rural experimental school for a period of two and a half months with a total of 10 class hours.In the stage of activity effect analysis,the study results of learners in experimental class and control class were analyzed from the perspectives of self-efficacy,computational thinking level test and teacher-student interview,to explore the effectiveness of computer science unplugged activities in cultivating computational thinking of senior rural primary school students and the differences between the level of computational thinking and self-efficacy of male and female students.At the stage of summary and prospect,some suggestions for the implementation of computer science unplugged activities are put forward based on the analysis results of experimental data.In this paper,the effects of computer science unplugged activities on the cultivation of computational thinking of senior rural primary school students are analyzed from two aspects:self-efficacy and computational thinking level.In terms of self-efficacy,computer science unplugged activities can effectively improve learners'self-efficacy.In terms of computational thinking level,computer science unplugged activities can promote the development of learners' computational thinking and improve their computational thinking level.In terms of gender difference,there is no significant difference in the self-efficacy and computational thinking level between boys and girls.In general,it is feasible to develop the computational thinking of advanced elementary school students through computer science unplugged activities in economically backward areas with limited educational resources.