A programming learning system introducing small steps involving mutual evaluation

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a programming learning system which incorporates a concept of small steps to nurture the computational thinking. While the project-based programming environment allows children to reach an unlimited goal of their achievements, most of learners often suffer from finding a meaningful project to work and coming up with a way of building programs for their project. In order to scaffold their programming experience, our system gives a step-by-step procedure to build a complete meaningful project, where the entire project is decomposed into small steps in advance. In addition, the system requires learners to ask their peer to check if an ongoing step is correctly completed before proceeding to the next step. In this way, our system allows them to experience the repeated cycle of the computational thinking process while encouraging them to interact each other. We also show our empirical findings obtained by applying this system to a programming workshop. In this workshop, 11 small steps to build a game project were provided to participants with our iPad application. As a result, we observed that they could complete the given project regardless of their programming experience and the system gave them an opportunity to interact with others while they were doing programming.