Page 22 - Getting the Picture Modeling and Simulation in Secondary Computer Science Education

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Chapter 1
to advance the learning of science outside the CS education. Examples include incorporating CT into middle school life science classes (Cateté et al., 2018; Gendreau Chakarov et al., 2019) and then using sensors to observe mold growth (Gendreau Chakarov et al., 2019); or, for science majors, by integrating CT into a bioinformatics course (Qin, 2009) or by focusing of computational principles in scientific inquiry (Hambrusch et al., 2009). Learning science can be supported through the use of modeling and simulation — an integral aspect of CT — too: for example, by developing computational models and simulation for science in grades 4-6 (Basu et al., 2013, 2014; Dwyer et al., 2013) or for physics in grade 9 (Aiken et al., 2012), often by employing tailor-made software (Basawapatna et al., 2013). It is suggested that CT can help put modeling — a core aspect of engagement in science (Justi & Gilbert, 2002) — within the reach of K-12 students (Sengupta et al., 2013; Wilensky, 2014; Wilensky et al., 2014). Teaching CT found its way also into, for example, games where children specify the algorithms describing the behavior of the characters in a game (Weller et al., 2008); music with musical live coding in Scratch (Ruthmann et al., 2010), and journalism where middle school students together with their teachers develop news stories and present them as text, video and animations in Scratch (Wolz et al., 2010). There are also suggestion to promote CT through contests. Bebras is an international contest for primary and secondary schools where tasks are categorized according to concepts they cover and it is suggested they can be incorporated into curriculum to promote CT (Dagienė & Sentance, 2016).
In parallel with these specific endeavors, comprehensive frameworks are being developed to inform and guide the integration of CT into K-12 curricula, with special attention given to classroom techniques, focusing on instructional approach. For example, by introducing into K-6 education various CT programs, courses or modules based on generic CT framework containing CT skills abstraction, generalization, decomposition, algorithmic thinking and debugging, through a holistic design approach (Angeli et al., 2016). Curzon et al. (2014) provide a framework with examples to help teachers teach CT, consisting of four stages: (1) definition, (2) concepts (algorithmic thinking, evaluation, decomposition, abstraction, generalization), (3) classroom techniques with examples of learners’ behavior, and (4) assessment which can be performed with an adapted version of assessment used for the subject Computing. For higher education, Perkovic et al. (2010) developed a framework to be used at their university “by faculty without formal training in information technology in order to understand and integrate computational thinking into their own general education courses” and provide