Designing domain-specific blocks for diffusion: The dialogue between pedagogical principles and design decisions

Abstract

Designing computer models can be a valuable way for students to refine their understandings of scientific phenomena while creating and testing their hypotheses. Drawing on these ideas, we designed nine domain-specific blocks related to diffusion as a Scratch extension, which we called Diffusion Modeling Scratch Extension. In this paper, we describe the pedagogical principles that guided the design of the blocks and draw on the data from a pilot study with seven students to investigate how our design decisions impacted students' learning experiences.