Project moveSMART: When Physical Education Meets Computational Thinking in Elementary Classrooms

Project moveSMART: When Physical Education Meets Computational Thinking in Elementary Classrooms
Jared O'Leary
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In this episode I unpack Fritz et al.’s (2021) publication titled “Project moveSMART: When physical education meets computational thinking in elementary classrooms,” which summarizes pilot study findings and activities that integrate CS/CT with physical education through a micro:bit.

  • welcome back to another episode of the

    csk8 podcast my name is jared o'leary

    each week of this podcast is either an

    interview with a guest or multiple

    guests or a solo episode where i unpack

    some scholarship in relation to computer

    science education in this week's

    particular episode i'm unpacking a paper

    titled project move smart colon when

    physical education meets computational

    thinking in elementary classrooms this

    paper was written by colin fritz dylan

    bray grace lee christine julene sherry

    burson darla castelli carol ramsey and

    jamie payton apologies if i

    mispronounced any names here's the

    abstract for this particular paper quote

    although computing skills are

    increasingly required for success in

    high school college and beyond there's

    little emphasis on improving

    computational thinking in elementary

    curricula computer science pathways that

    do exist often fail to engage students

    populations that are traditionally

    underserved project move smart uses a

    web-based platform to integrate

    opportunities for physical education

    with computer science and computational

    thinking csct learning activities

    project move smart was developed through

    a research practitioner partnership

    involving computer scientists

    educational researchers and teachers

    this article describes a series of

    tutorials from project movesmart

    designed to introduce elementary

    students to csct by making connections

    to physical activity and grade level

    curricula in other subjects through

    these tutorials students create a

    physical activity monitor using the bbc

    microbit fourth grade students that

    underwent a single day intervention

    experience a significant improvement in

    their interest in coding and in their

    perceptions of coders end quote if i

    were to summarize this paper into a

    single sentence i would say that this

    article summarizes pilot study findings

    and activities that integrate cs and ct

    with physical education through a

    microbit now as always in the show notes

    i include a direct link to this

    particular paper which is found for free

    on google scholar and if you click the

    author last names it'll actually send

    you to their google scholar profile so

    you can read more papers by the authors

    you can find those show notes by

    clicking the link in the app that you're

    listening to this on or by visiting

    jarredoleary.com and clicking on the

    podcast tab and while you're there

    you'll find hundreds if not thousands of

    free computer science education

    resources as well as a bunch of drumming

    and gaming content because i do stream

    and i am a content creator at heart

    professionally and for leisure and while

    you're at it if you're looking for more

    free computer science education

    resources make sure you check out

    bootuppd.org which is the nonprofit that

    i work for and that powers this podcast

    all right so in the introduction of this

    paper the authors begin by discussing

    how there are different inequalities in

    terms of different demographics

    receiving more or less access to

    computer science and computational

    thinking instruction and experience time

    and how this is also the case for

    physical education as well for example

    here's a quote from page two quote

    despite the benefits of physical

    activity eighty percent of adolescents

    fail to meet the recommended hour of

    daily physical activity end quote so the

    author cites some studies that say that

    elementary school is the best place to

    help develop habits of physical activity

    that will carry over into the later

    grades and later on in life so in order

    to address these gaps in both of these

    subject areas i decided to combine

    physical education with computer science

    education through project move smart so

    here's a quote from page two that kind

    of discusses this quote project move

    smart is a collaborative educational

    game built around a researcher

    practitioner partnership rpp that

    includes teachers from multiple schools

    and school districts project movesmart

    promotes increased physical activity and

    cs and ct while also delivering content

    aligns with state learning standards in

    many cases these three facets are

    integrated into the same content for

    instance in one learning activity

    students program their own step counter

    measure their steps as they complete a

    physical activity then finish an

    assessment that includes questions

    involving inequalities a topic covered

    in state learning standards project

    movesmart also promotes physical

    activity through the online platform

    used to deliver educational content as

    students increase their classes score by

    logging higher rates of physical

    activity end quote so the next section

    of this paper is on related work so i

    highly recommend checking it out if

    you're interested in reading more about

    some different studies that talk about

    similar things then the third section is

    titled the pilot study so in the section

    they talk about the demographics of the

    students like where they are located and

    discusses how the participants were from

    fourth and fifth grade classes and then

    it gives an outline of the platform that

    is being used so it's basically an

    online platform where students are able

    to kind of log their activities go

    through some lessons and instructional

    content like in mate code where they can

    learn how to program their micro bits

    and then submit their assignments and

    whatnot and like daily activities and

    data et cetera now these lessons are

    scaffolded from simple to more complex

    where they reveal different aspects

    concepts practices etc over time so

    starting on page five is kind of like a

    little explanation of each one of the

    different learning experiences so for

    example the very first one is a walk

    through to show you how to create a

    timer with micro bits you might use a

    timer to figure out how fast you can run

    or i don't know reaction time or

    something the second learning activity

    or experience is all about sensing so

    this is about using an accelerometer to

    create a step counter with micro bit and

    the third one focuses on variables so

    refactoring and iterative development

    and whatnot so they'll go back to a

    previous project add some variables into

    it then the fourth activity is all about

    control flow so they're going to create

    or modify a step counter that has an on

    and off button so using an if

    conditional to create that on and off

    button then in the fifth activity

    students are going to modify their

    program to include a step rate so how

    many steps you take per unit of time

    like how many steps are you taking per

    minute or per hour or whatever in the

    sixth activity they get into some

    complex conditionals so instead of just

    if they might have if else conditionals

    so then they can compare something like

    the step rate and the intensity of an

    activity level and use that data to

    inform like how well they think they're

    exercising or whatever and then the

    seventh activity is all about

    communication so using the broadcast or

    the radio to be able to

    communicate through rfid from a micro

    bit to the classes raspberry pi so that

    way they can like check in now i just

    very quickly went over all the

    activities it's almost like

    three pages worth of content so if you

    want to learn more about well what did

    they actually do in this and like what

    are some example questions and whatnot

    make sure you check out those pages

    starting on page five and so the next

    section on page eight is titled physical

    activity and cs interest so

    unfortunately covet had an impact on

    this particular pilot study so it made

    it so that only nine of the fourth grade

    students were in attendance in person

    and most of the fourth grade students

    were able to complete the first two

    learning activities however the fifth

    grade students at least most of them

    only completed the first one and none of

    them completed any of the other

    activities so that means for the results

    for this particular study for the fifth

    graders they only created a micro bit

    timer and then for the fourth graders

    they created a microbit timer and then a

    step counter so here's a quote from page

    eight that kind of summarizes two main

    findings quote we made the following

    observations one even a short

    intervention using the microbit based

    learning activities has the potential to

    improve students as coding attitudes and

    two incremental deployment of features

    helped maintain engagement in quote okay

    so if we look at the data which has

    statistical significance but not

    necessarily like huge gains we can ins

    we can see an increase for the fourth

    graders in coding confidence coding

    interest coding utility social value of

    coding and perceptions of coders some of

    these are relatively small but it

    appears as though the coding confidence

    and perceptions of coders are

    statistically significant now when you

    compare this with the fifth graders

    there's really not much change like very

    small amount of increase in coding

    confidence there's actually a decrease

    in coding interest which is interesting

    the coding utility remained about the

    same there is an increase in social

    value of coding that was the largest

    increase and then there's a slight

    decrease in perceptions of coders so

    those are interesting findings now

    here's a quote from page nine that kind

    of

    elaborates on why that might be for the

    fifth graders quote there were no

    statistically significant changes for

    the fifth grade students coding

    attitudes but a large portion of the

    fifth grade class period was spent

    introducing movesmart so many students

    did not make significant progress

    through the learning activities because

    the fourth grade students had been more

    engaged with the platform throughout the

    year they were able to make greater

    progress because they had less trouble

    logging into and navigating through the

    platform this highlights the importance

    of incrementally introducing platform

    features end quote yeah and that's

    something that i totally agree with it's

    like the studies on testing demonstrate

    that the more you practice taking the

    test the higher you're going to score

    because they're going to be more

    familiar with it especially if it's an

    online platform etc which reminds me of

    like tpack which is a framework that

    stands for technological knowledge

    pedagogical knowledge and content

    knowledge and so if you think of like a

    venn diagram of three circles all kind

    of intersecting with each other in this

    case you need to think of how to teach

    the lessons that's a pedagogical

    knowledge you need to know the content

    knowledge in two different subject areas

    so that's the content knowledge and then

    the technological knowledge is you need

    to know how to introduce the platform so

    getting kids comfortable with it so from

    a user standpoint like students not only

    need to understand the content knowledge

    that they are learning but also the

    platforms they're using to demonstrate

    their understanding or to even just

    learn like to be able to figure out how

    do i log in and watch these videos and

    whatnot and that's something that i

    often see a lot of

    new like technology and cs teachers not

    really understand especially when you

    get into like the primary grades like

    kids don't know how to log into devices

    you often have to teach them how to do

    that it's just one of those things that

    like

    is so commonplace for adults most adults

    that we often forget about having to

    teach the technology like here's what a

    left click is here's what a right click

    is it's the same thing for here's how to

    navigate through this website on the

    left hand side is your menu tree on the

    right hand side is what you're going to

    learn etc so there are ways to do that

    that are interesting and there are ways

    to do that that are not and that's where

    the pedagogical knowledge comes into

    play etc alright but here's one more

    quote that i want to read from page nine

    quote one teacher a physical education

    teacher told us initially i thought

    computer science in elementary school it

    doesn't matter after watching the

    students do it i was fascinated with how

    much they love this activity they

    initially didn't think they were capable

    of doing it they had so much fun this

    opened their minds to doing computer

    science and they really believed in

    themselves end quote that's a great

    quote i do however wonder how much of

    that is selection bias and like maybe

    not reading off quotes of like hey i

    hated this and that's not an accusation

    made at the authors or anything i just

    know that there is a tendency for some

    researchers to promote this hey here's

    this wonderful thing that we've created

    you should do it too we're gonna ignore

    all the data that says it's not

    wonderful they're outliers ignore them

    but that's just me being a critical

    skeptic of all research alright so i

    know this is a relatively short paper so

    a relatively short podcast but i at the

    end of these like to talk about my

    lingering thoughts and questions i

    actually have a few for this one these

    questions are not meant as critiques of

    the paper or of the authors or anything

    like that this is just me sharing my

    thoughts that i had while i was reading

    through this to hopefully spark some

    discussion with others in the field so

    if you hear a question on here and

    you're like oh i want to talk with jared

    about that join me on a podcast there's

    a contact me button on my website

    jaredaler.com just let me know here's

    the first question that i have how much

    of the jump in interest is due to the

    novelty having not worn off yet so the

    fourth graders had two lessons and the

    fifth graders only had one lesson what

    would have happened if they went through

    all seven lessons or 20 lessons how

    would the interest change over time so

    if you were to do

    a test beforehand and then after every

    single one of the lessons would it look

    like a bell curve of interest where it

    starts off not very interested gain some

    interest gain some interest and then

    plateaus and then eventually students

    start to lose interest we don't know

    because of the length of this particular

    study and we also don't know what

    happens with that because most do pre

    and post only and not any kind of

    midterm assessments but i asked this

    because i had experience

    where the district that i previously

    worked in basically gave me everything

    that they wanted to test out in the

    makerspace and they just let my classes

    try it out so i had a middle school

    makerspace and we'd get like every robot

    every device etc that the district

    wanted to see hey should we give this to

    other schools and students often for

    most things would think it was really

    cool for a week or two and then they

    lose interest in it it was only the

    stuff that students consistently wanted

    to engage with throughout the quarter

    and semester that i was like hey i

    highly recommend buying more of these

    things so for example the makey makey in

    my coding classes kids had like a dozen

    or so that they could pick up use some

    play-doh use some

    aluminum foil some conductive thread

    wires etc to like create things that

    they would use in their scratch projects

    or whatever students loved it for about

    two weeks and then they got bored with

    it and then they realized it was too

    much of a hassle or they just like

    preferred to just code their projects so

    what i don't know is with a study like

    this that's on the intersections of cs

    and physical education at what point

    does the novelty wear off but speaking

    of the intersection of cs and physical

    education the fact that we are having to

    find ways to combine subject areas

    together just to meet the minimum

    recommended daily amounts is an

    indicator that we have too many subject

    requirements and not enough time in the

    school day to learn them so when might

    this approach be a disservice to

    everybody in other words when might this

    approach diminish both subject areas by

    forcing people to focus on the

    intersections of each subject area and

    not the other areas outside of those

    intersections so for example there are

    many interesting intersections with

    music and cs i've done podcasts on them

    i'll include a link to them in the

    episode as well as some publications

    that i've done on that intersection but

    what about areas specific to each domain

    like the stress relief that can come

    with playing the drums or the

    affordances and constraints of different

    sorting techniques these are beneficial

    and interesting on their own but they

    don't necessarily intersect well with

    each other like i would not be

    interested in learning how to sort my

    drums that makes no sense so at what

    point are we putting on blinders to

    everything that doesn't align well with

    such an intersection often when i see

    these intersections of two different

    subject areas it's in short activities

    maybe a unit if we're lucky but then

    after that the ideas are repetitive or

    just non-existent so there's only so

    much we can do at the intersections of

    different subject areas but it still

    gets at the heart of the issue of i

    think we have too many required subject

    areas the fact that 80 of students are

    not getting the recommended daily amount

    of physical education of one hour is

    setting up for a potential lifetime of

    physical and mental health problems and

    that's alarming but then we have

    recommended daily amounts for other

    subject areas like math and reading i

    think reading's like 90 minutes in my

    school if we keep piling on all these

    recommended amounts like hey this is

    really beneficial for you eventually

    we're going to run out of enough time in

    the week to do it so all these

    intersections can help to make it so you

    can do both at the same time it also

    makes it so that we are ignoring

    everything else that's interesting in

    those subject areas but it also just

    doesn't address the larger issue of we

    have too many required subject areas in

    my opinion but i know that's

    controversial and again you can come on

    this podcast and disagree with me i'm

    happy to chat last question that i got

    from reading this particular paper is

    how might we explore integrated cs

    curricula through an interest driven

    approach so there's a bunch of other

    episodes where i talk about this i'll

    include a link to some of those episodes

    in the show notes for example the

    interview with mitch resnick where we

    talk about why it's important to use an

    interest-driven approach in mandatory cs

    classes where we cannot assume buy-in

    from everyone forced to attend now ask

    this question because a lot of the

    integrated curricula that i see is very

    focused it's everybody's doing the same

    thing and creating the same thing and

    this can create some problems in that

    kids who don't have an interest in that

    particular activity might lose interest

    in both subject areas but if you instead

    take an approach like a rhizomatic

    approach or an interest-driven approach

    again links in the show notes that talk

    about those then when a student is

    forced to be in this class that explores

    these intersections maybe they will

    develop an interest in those subject

    areas because they're exploring

    something they're already inherently

    interested in it just so happens to

    include cs and something else but we

    need more studies on that so stay tuned

    anyways i know this was a shorter

    episode but i thought it was a really

    interesting idea i was like ooh physical

    education in cs let's learn more so

    hopefully more studies will come out in

    the future that aren't just pilot

    studies that are negatively impacted by

    kovid but thank you so much for

    listening to this episode stay tuned

    next week for another episode and until

    then i hope you're staying safe and are

    having a wonderful week

Article

Fritz, C., Bray, D., Lee, G., Julien, C., Burson, S., Castelli, D., Ramsey, C., & Payton, J. (2021). Project moveSMART: When physical education meets computational thinking in elementary classrooms. Computer, May/June, 1–11.

Abstract

“Although computing skills are increasingly required for success in high school, college, and beyond, there is little emphasis on improving computational thinking in elementary curricula. Computer science pathways that do exist often fail to engage student populations that are traditionally underserved. Project moveSMART uses a web-based platform to integrate opportunities for physical education with computer science and computational thinking (CS/CT) learning activities. Project moveSMART was developed through a researcher-practicioner [sic] partnership involving computer scientists, educational researchers, and teachers. This article describes a series of tutorials from Project moveSMART designed to introduce elementary students to CS/CT by making connections to physical activity and grade-level curricula in other subjects. Through these tutorials, students create a physical activity monitor using the BBC micro:bit. Fourth grade students that underwent a single day intervention experienced a significant improvement in their interest in coding and in their perceptions of coders.”

Author Keywords

Computer science education, serious games, pervasive computing

My One Sentence Summary

This article summarizes pilot study findings and activities that integrate CS/CT with physical education through a micro:bit.

Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • How much of the jump in interest is due to the novelty having not worn off yet?

  • The fact that we are having to find ways to combine subject areas together just to meet the minimum recommended daily amount is an indicator that we have too many requirements and not enough time in the school day to do them

    • When might this approach be a disservice to everyone?

      • When might this approach diminish both subject areas by forcing people to focus on the intersections of each subject area and not the other areas outside of those intersections?

  • How might we explore integrated CS curricula through an interest-driven approach?

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

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Unpacking ScholarshipJared O'LearyIntegration, Physical health, Physical computing, micro:bitComment