Design And Implementation Of Kittenblock School-Based Curriculum For Junior High School Based On Computational Thinking Training

Computational thinking is a kind of literacy and ability centered on problem solving,which not only involves the thinking activities in the field of computer science,but also is closely related to everyone’s life in the digital age.More and more countries attach importance to the development of computational thinking,but the research of computational thinking in our country is still in its initial stage,so we should strengthen the cultivation of computational thinking in the primary and middle schools as the focus.With the rapid development of the information age,programming education has become an important channel to cultivate computational thinking.Graphic programming has the characteristics of visualization,easy to use and interesting,and it is a powerful tool to promote the development of computational thinking among teenagers.However,the country has not yet formed a unified curriculum system for graphic programming education.It is the problem we need to explore deeply how to cultivate the computational thinking of our compulsory education students based on the graphic programming education in schools.This study focuses on the cultivation of junior high school students’ computational thinking,based on the educational purpose,environmental facilities,students’ daily campus activities and other actual conditions of Y School in Shijiazhuang City,and takes Kittenblock,a new graphic programming software,as the training tool,to design and implement Kittenblock school-based curriculum based on the cultivation of computational thinking.And the implementation effect of the curriculum is analyzed and summarized.This study is mainly divided into the following four aspects:First,this study sorted out relevant researches on computational thinking and graphic programming education at home and abroad through literature research,and conducted preliminary investigation and analysis on the teaching status of Y school’s curriculum,the level of teachers and the learning attitude of students in Grade one through questionnaire and interview investigation and research,providing a basis for the feasibility of curriculum development and subsequent design.Secondly,based on Taylor curriculum theory,Piaget cognitive development stage theory,learning by Doing and constructivism learning theory,this study analyzed national curriculum objectives and Kittenblock programming tool,divided the five dimensions of ISTE computational thinking,and generated the three-dimensional curriculum objectives of this school-based curriculum.Taking the five dimensions of computational thinking as the starting point,the Kittenblock programming knowledge is integrated with students’ real learning and life experience,and the course content structure of four modules,namely "introduction","learning","leisure" and "labor",is designed.According to the characteristics of the five dimensions of computational thinking,five teaching links have been formed: "creation situation-knowledge teaching-work generation-display and communication-evaluation and summary".Thirdly,according to the curriculum design,the teaching implementation of Kittenblock school-based course was carried out for a class of students in Grade One,during which the classroom performance of students was observed and the measurement data of students’ computational thinking ability and classroom works were collected.Fourthly,after the completion of the curriculum implementation,this study tested and analyzed the effect of the curriculum implementation from the aspects of students’ creative works,computational thinking before and after testing level,curriculum satisfaction and teacher interview.From the analysis results,it can be seen that this school-based course has stimulated students’ interest in learning programming knowledge,and made students significantly improve in three dimensions of algorithmic thinking,cooperation ability and problem solving ability.This research designs and implements Kittenblock school-based curriculum for junior high school based on cultivation of computational thinking at Y school,which makes ISTE five dimensions of computational thinking contact and support each other in curriculum objectives,curriculum content and curriculum implementation.It not only enriches the school-based curriculum system of graphics programming in the middle and high schools in China,but also meets the curriculum construction needs of Y school.It broadens the professional development of teachers and promotes the development of students’ programming learning attitude,practical operation ability and computational thinking ability.