"To learn programming for the sake of programming goes nowhere for children unless they can put those skills to use in a meaningful way." -Yasmin B. Kafai
If computational thinking is a tech era term to describe problem solving and logic, then learning computational thinking has long term benefits for every student.
The benefits for learning programming and coding may seem limited to computer science majors, until coding is viewed as a tool to build and enhance a student's ability to think logically and solve problems.
A few years back, I had an ADST Computer course with Grade 9's and I had a curious change in plans that worked our rather nicely. We were spending some time with business applications in Office and I chose to insert some programming with Scratch before we started our work with spreadsheets.
My motivation was to change the pace a bit and engage students in something more directly related to their interests. I was also worried that they would not enjoy spreadsheets if this was viewed as just another business application.
What I did not anticipate was that the logic and problem solving work that we did in Scratch was preparing them to appreciate the formulas and functions built into a spreadsheet. Scratch showed students how lines of code controlled elements in a program to achieve a desired result. It also showed, by analogy, how a formula in a spreadsheet cell performs tasks and calculations to produce a desired result.
I felt that the students' enthusiasm for spreadsheets was higher than Scratch. Building a video game or application in Scratch had some value to students, but they quickly realized how spreadsheets could perform all sorts of useful tasks for them once they knew a few simple formulas.
Calculating wages with a simple formula, running budgets and tracking 'money spent', or linking cells from different sheets to 'crunch' data showed students that spreadsheets had a number powerful uses, limited only by their imagination.
Have you ever used spreadsheets as a computational thinking 'tool' with students? How was it received?
Karen
ReplyDeleteWOW! What a great connection. We joke at my school how I don't like using spreadsheets when I have to input information for budget related things. It's not that I don't appreciate the functions, I don't like the layout and I find it hard to follow the columns and rows.
I never thought of a spreadsheet in the way you described it. What a useful tool to teach your students! I'm going to check with our Business Teachers to see if this is something they do and maybe we could collaborate and invite the Head of Tech to join to do some Scratch or other coding first. Thanks for the idea
Hi Karen! Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad that this idea resonated with you and that you may get to work with your business teachers on spreadsheets and Scratch. If they are reluctant to use Scratch, then you could challenge them to find fun ways to 'code' their spreadsheets with formulas and functions.
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