| As an essential skillset for students in the 21 st century,the development of computational thinking has received increasing attention by the state.In contrast to some foreign countries,the promotion of computational thinking in China had a later start,initially focused on higher education but now extending across all levels of primary and secondary schooling.The development of computational thinking has emerged as a significant value proposition in information technology courses.Despite the substantial progress made in this field,there remain several unexplored aspects that require greater attention from researchers.For instance,there is a need to explore effective ways of training individuals in computational thinking and evaluating the effectiveness of such training programs.As a result,education researchers and teachers have shifted their focus towards developing innovative teaching models and evaluation techniques to enhance computational thinking skills.Design-oriented learning,as a relatively novel pedagogical approach,offers significant advantages in developing students’ higher-order thinking skills,such as problem-solving and creativity,and is in line with the requirements of computational thinking cultivation in many aspects.Building on this foundation,the present study aims to leverage the benefits of design learning by integrating it with training in computational thinking skills.To this end,we have developed a design learning model that is tailored to the development of computational thinking abilities and implemented it in Junior high school information technology classrooms as part of our teaching experiments.Our ultimate goal is to facilitate the enhancement of computational thinking abilities among junior high school students.This study begins by reviewing the relevant literature on design learning and computational thinking,examining its research status,and organizing the related concepts of computational thinking and design learning.The study evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of typical design-based learning models,conducted interviews and consultations with front-line teachers and relevant educational technology experts,and analyzed the feasibility of using design-based learning models to develop students’ computational thinking ability.Finally,a design learning mode oriented towards the development of computational thinking ability is constructed based on three perspectives: teacher activities,student activities,and teaching links.The learning mode revolves around five ability elements of computational thinking.Subsequently,based on an analysis of learner characteristics,teaching objectives,and content,a teaching experiment plan was designed and implemented at Changsha B School according to the teaching design plan.Taking the two units of "Initial Introduction to Algorithms and Programming" and "Fundamentals of Programming" in the junior high school information technology course as the experimental content,two classes of the second grade of junior high school were randomly selected as experimental classes and control classes,and controlled experiments were carried out to verify the teaching effect of the model.Before commencing the teaching experiment,the adapted evaluation scale for computational thinking was utilized to assess both the experimental and control groups in order to determine if there existed any disparity in their computational thinking capacities.After the conclusion of the teaching experiment,both classes underwent testing using algorithm programming test questions and a computational thinking evaluation scale.Additionally,students were interviewed to provide further details for the comprehensive assessment of their computational thinking abilities-details that may not have been easily perceptible.This process allowed for the collection of experimental data for analysis,which in turn aided in drawing experimental conclusions and verifying the feasibility and effectiveness of the design-based learning model for cultivating students’ computational thinking skills.The experimental results show that: First,the design-based learning mode oriented towards cultivating computational thinking abilities exerts a facilitative effect on the development of students’ computational thinking abilities.Second,the designed learning model constructed facilitates the activation of students’ learning motivation and exploration propensity.Third,the constructed design-based learning model has a facilitating effect on students’ academic performance,specifically compared to the traditional instructional approach,the design-based learning model proves to be more efficacious in enhancing students’ mastery of algorithmic and programming foundational knowledge.Finally,it is our aspiration that this study will act as a valuable point of reference for fellow education researchers,as well as frontline teachers.Additionally,we hope that it will generate novel ideas to enhance learners’ computational thinking abilities and foster the advancement of computational thinking education. |
