Introducing Coding through Tabletop Board Games and Their Digital Instantiations across Elementary Classrooms and School Libraries
In this episode I unpack Lee et al.'s (2020) experience report titled “Introducing coding through tabletop board games and their digital instantiations across elementary classrooms and school libraries," which investigates the transfer of understanding when students begin learning CS through a tabletop board game and switch to a digital coding environment.
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Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 Podcast my name is Jared O'Leary in
this week's episode I'm going to be
reading an experience report that's
going to be presented at 6e later on
this week
assuming it doesn't get cancelled
because of coronavirus but the
experience report is titled introducing
coding through tabletop board games and
their digital instantiations across
elementary classrooms and school
libraries now this paper was written by
Victor Arlie Frederick pool Jody Clarke
Madeira Mimi wrecker and Melissa
Rasmussen apologies if I mispronounced
anybody's names this paper can be found
at least the link to it can be found in
the show notes which you can click in
the description in your app that you're
listening to this on or by visiting
Ghirardelli recom and clicking on the
show notes for this particular episode
now if you click on the title that it's
in the show notes it will take you to
the paper itself which I believe all ACM
members can download in addition if you
click on any of the author's last names
in the link at the top of my website it
will take you to their google scholar
profile so you can read more papers by
them alright so now I'm going to read
for you the abstract for this paper
quote this experience report describes
an approach for helping Elementary
School's integrate computational
thinking and coding by leveraging
existing resources and infrastructure
that do not rely on one-to-one computing
a particular focus is using the school
library a media center as a site to
complement and enhance classroom
instruction on coding further our
approach builds on unplugged knowledge
and practices that are already familiar
to and motivating for students in this
case tabletop board games through these
games students can use their prior
knowledge and ease with tabletop gaming
mechanics to cue relevant ideas for core
computational concepts we describe a
model and instructional unit spanning
across classroom and school library
settings that builds upon board gameplay
as a source domain for computing
knowledge building on expansive framing
the model emphasizes instructional
linkages being made between one domain
the tabletop board game and another
specifically designed scratch project
shells with partially complete code
blocks such that the reasoning
activities and different contexts as
seen as instantiations of the same
encompassing context we present the
experiences of three elementary school
teachers as they implemented the unit in
their classroom
and with the school librarian we also
show initial findings on the impact of
the unit of student interest in of 87 as
measured by pre and post surveys we
conclude with lessons learned about ways
to improve the unit and future classroom
implementations in quote so far to
summarize this into a single sentence I
would say that this experience report
investigates the transfer of
understandings when students begin
learning computer science through a
tabletop board game and switched to a
digital coding environment alright so in
the introduction the authors point out
that while elementary schools across the
nation are being asked to incorporate
computer science into the classroom many
teachers and administrators are unsure
where to start when sifting through the
many resources out there or honestly
even where to start looking or how to
assess the quality of the resources that
are out there I'm sure as educators who
are listening to this you can all attest
to the many number of ads you've
received for what's supposed to be the
award-winning best platform ever but
really it's kind of hard to rate the
quality of it just based on
advertisements alone so here's a quote
from page 788 quote to address these
issues we have been working with local
schools to find ways to integrate
computational thinking and coding using
existing resources and infrastructure
and that do not rely on one to one
computer to student ratios and quote
even though many schools are turning
towards one-to-one devices this is a
very important for schools I cannot
afford it or for schools who are looking
for alternatives outside of just using
screens the entire time while engaging
in computer science the author's point
out in the paper itself that they are
leveraging school libraries and media
centers because they are increasingly
becoming spaces for maker activities
which I've discussed in previous
unpacking scholarship episodes and they
believe that the time spent in the
library can be spent engaging with code
so for example through organizations
like libraries ready to code librarians
and media specialists have access to
computer science and computational
thinking resources which if you just
search for that phrase or go to the show
notes I have a direct link to those
resources in addition the author's
indicates they chose libraries as a
space for this particular study because
of their quote ability to serve as a
locus for interest development and
maintenance in quote
on page 789 and the authors also note
that they previously studied playing
board games in the library so they
wanted to see whether they could
leverage quote board gameplay as a
source domain for computing knowledge
and quote age 788 now personally I find
the whole premise of this super nerdy
and super enjoyable I thoroughly approve
of multi perspectival approaches and if
kids are more familiar with playing
tabletop games then cool why not
incorporate that in the classroom in
some way that is meaningful to them and
just so happens to also teach them some
cool things that they can use in other
subject areas like computer science or
wherever now in the review of literature
the authors point out that unplugged
activities are often used to reinforce
or teach computer science and
computational thinking understandings
however emerging research actually
suggests that tabletop gaming can also
teach the CS and CT which is pretty
interesting and honestly not really
talked about all that much in computer
science scholarship that I've read so
here's a quote from page 788 quote
tabletop board games can be well suited
for learning computational thinking
because they have defined rules and
structures that players must enact in a
sense learners execute a program in
order to complete the game at the same
time players engage in extensive
sense-making conversations to understand
what and how procedures and rules are to
be followed how to optimize strategy and
how to monitor each other's actions in
quote now in the paper itself the
authors mentioned multiple tabletop
games like coding farmers potato pirates
and robot turtles and they indicate too
that all of these can teach computer
science concepts which I have again
linked in the show notes however there
is very little research to actually back
up some of the claims that some of these
companies make in terms of whether or
not kids actually do learn computer
science concepts when engaging in these
board games so to study this the authors
first began with the tabletop games and
then use angles model expansive framing
to determine whether computational
thinking concepts actually transferred
from the tabletop environment into
digital and of coding environments like
scratch now this is very important
because as CS educators who were again
bombarded by
tons of supposedly award-winning
computer science platforms that will
supposedly teach you absolutely
everything you need to know about
anything related to computer science we
need to be able to sift through the
jargon the marketing jargon in
particular and actually get down to
whether or not kids actually learn when
engaging in those environments or if
they're simply just having fun doing
something that's tangentially of related
to computer science or computational
thinking so this particular study took
place over eight weeks in a unit that
went from computer science board games
into scratch shells of those same games
so they typically spent about two weeks
playing a CS board game then three weeks
making edits to the scratch version of
the same board game then two weeks
designing new levels for the board game
and then finally a week sharing what
they created with their teachers and
peers in addition the classroom teachers
also taught six preparatory lessons and
their classrooms which prepared kids for
the engagement in the library so they'd
kind of introduce some of the things
that they'd be doing and then they'd
actually do it in the library itself now
the game that they used was called code
on the brink which is linked in the show
notes and by the way there are two
slashes at the start of the word code
which means comment you can see that in
the show notes and in the paper itself
and this particular game has 40
challenges where kids essentially have
to sing quits together cards with
directions that program a robot to
navigate a level in the board game in
terms of participants there were three
fifth grade teachers in Utah who
participated which resulted in 87 kids
participating in the study itself now to
collect data the authors use two video
cameras that recorded the sessions as
well as a pre and post survey with 32
like art items related to interest in
computer science which was given to all
of the students who participated let's
talk about the actual findings of this
particular study so interestingly B
classroom with a teacher that had the
most experience with block based
programming also quote reported a
significant decrease in their intrinsic
interest in computing end quote that's
page 792 791 so again a decrease in
their actual interest in wanting to
learn computer science in fact their
mean score was actually a full point
lower within a range from one to six
however one of the other classes
a state about the same and the third
class showed a significant increase in
overall interest in other words they had
mixed findings for implementation in the
classroom now the authors also found
that kids who took the boardgame home
indicated higher intrinsic interest in
the post survey than kids who didn't
however the authors later point out that
there was a sudden drop-off in interest
for taking home the boardgame after a
relatively short amount of time
interestingly in the preparation section
the author's recommended that the
teachers have a discussion about what
kids were going to do in those
preparatory lessons however they found
that teachers spent a lot more time
talking or lecturing during that section
than they did actually engaging in
discussion so the author's quote posit
that it was through teacher talk that
variation in implementation was largely
realized and thus was a contributor to
the difference in student post survey
results between classes end quote
that's on page 791 in other words they
think the reason why kids show different
interests is because of the amount of
time that each teacher spent during the
preparation period lecturing at the
students or talking to them the reason
why they posit this is because the
students appeared more engaged in the
lessons when there was less direct
instruction this is from their video
observations in addition they note that
the students who scored lower in the
post survey were introduced to more
abstract connections such as like
programming a calculator than some of
the more playful examples that the other
teachers demonstrated such as like
programming a toy robot so in other
words the officer suggesting that we
need to make things more relevant to the
kids and connect with their own
understandings rather than kind of
talking about computer science in an
abstract manner or something that makes
sense to adults rather than for kids now
one of the interesting things that they
point out in their findings is that the
class that had the highest gains also
had a teacher who narrated not only what
she was doing but what the students
would be doing this is something that I
personally found really valuable when I
was doing my student teaching my mentor
teacher actually would narrate out what
he was doing and why he was doing
certain things with the classes he was
working with so that way I could
understand the thought process he's
behind what he was doing while teaching
a class so that really helped me and is
kind of my way of saying I agree this
could probably really help kids if you
kind of explain your own thought
processes as you're going through them
in relation to what kid
are actually going to be doing when they
engage with coding in the library now in
the discussion section at the end of
this relatively short paper the author's
mentioned that they want to start
scratch sooner during their next
iteration because there's too much time
between playing the board game and
coding and scratch
I found this point to be particularly
interesting because it's basically
saying they're trying to still figure
out the balance between how much time
should be spent doing something
unplugged before you actually apply
those concepts and understandings into a
plugged version of that educational
experience another one of the things the
authors mentioned is that the game
circulated a lot during the start of the
unit but then the students quickly lost
interest in taking it home now I found
this with other devices that did not
have opportunities for increasing
complexity or creative outlets so for
example kids who use the makey makey in
my classes were like super excited about
it at the beginning but then after a
couple weeks they're like I just
honestly want to create something in
scratch it takes too much time to set
this thing up and it's not as
interesting as what I can do in the
digital environment now that's not a
knock on makey makey itself it's a
really interesting product that can be
used however I just personally found
that kids eventually lost interest in it
after a couple of weeks despite an
initial huge surge of interest in
wanting to use one of the ten available
devices that I had in my classroom all
right so I have some lingering questions
so one of them is how my interest in
computer science compared with the
following treatment groups one example
playing the board games only second
example would be playing the board games
and moving into scratch and in the third
example we'll be using scratch only so
if we have those three different
treatment types how would each of them
compare so only doing unplugged doing
the combination of unplugged and plugged
and then doing plugged only ie scratch
only also what happens if we reverse the
order so for example going from scratch
and then learning the board game after
the fact are going from plug to unplug
lessons now personally I prefer to go
from plug to unplug back into plugged
because I think it situates the
understandings and can kind of reinforce
what's going on so let me unpack that a
little bit more what I mean by that for
example if kids are learning about
conditionals in scratch
and they've gotten to this point in a
project where they need to know how to
do this thing and they start engaging
with using the if-else blocks we can
then do an unplugged that reinforces
that understanding and provides a
different way of looking at it such as
like red light green light something
like that where if I show a red light
then you're going to stop moving
otherwise if I show a green light you're
going to continue moving straight
forward after they go through that
unplugged experience then they go back
into the platform where they needed to
know that information and we're trying
to apply it and then they're able to
contextualize that information a little
bit better hopefully by having another
perspective on what the if-else blocks
are so again in other words going from
plugged having a need to know something
to unplugged where they explore it in an
offline manner in some way that's
engaging and interesting to them and
then going back into that need-to-know
moment and applying their understandings
in there so this is a bit different than
what is typically talked about where you
start with unplugged and then you go
into plugged or vice-versa now another
question that I had is is the purpose of
this study to analyze the intended
impact of the unit itself how the unit
was taught or how students embodied the
unit so this gets into something that
curricular scholars like Elliot Eisner
and William H Schubert discuss so for
example there is a concept of the
intended curriculum the intended
curriculum is what to the curriculum
designers created or in this case the
game developers created and is the thing
that we want everyone to walk away and
no one understand and we intend for this
to happen when we tend for these
understandings to occur and everyone's
gonna become the best computer
scientists in the world as a result of
this curriculum that's the intended part
now the TOC curriculum is what is
actually taught by the teachers in the
classroom or through the experience
itself so this goes hand-in-hand with
the intended curriculum but as the
authors note what is intended often
differs in terms of how it was taught so
the authors wanted more of a discussion
that was supposed to go with the
preparatory lessons but they noted that
some of the teachers spent significantly
more time than they wanted of doing the
preparatory lessons as lectures so that
again intended was different than what
is taught now the next layer down would
be the experience curriculum so this is
what kids actually experience in the
curriculum itself so what they're
actually going
in the class mrs. Canby and often is
different than what is taught because
what a student experiences is kind of
dependent on many other factors now in
addition to what its students
experienced through the curriculum
there's also the embodied curriculum
these are the meanings that are derived
from the experience curriculum itself so
for example if the student experiences
ACS as unplugged lessons alone they
might embody the notion that computer
science doesn't involve working on a
computer so let me kind of unpack those
four so far so we have intended
curriculum this is what like the
curriculum or game developer intends to
be learned or taught from the curriculum
itself
however that is often different than
what is taught by the actual teacher
they might add their own spin on it or
change some things or forget something
or teach it in a way that is different
than what is intended
now this then impacts the experience
curriculum which is what the students
actually engage in in the classroom
which is sometimes different than the
embodied curriculum which of the
takeaways the things that they learn and
walk away from so even though it's
something was intended the way it was
taught influences the way it was
experienced which influences what is
actually embodied all four of those
things are completely different layers
of curriculum development that we have
to take in consideration when studying
curricula in a classroom setting
now there's also other layers so for
example there's a hidden or implicit
curriculum now the hidden in our
implicit curriculum is the curriculum
that takes place beyond what is over at
least stated so for example classroom
and school norms are forms of hidden or
implicit curriculum an example that a
lot of people talk about is norms in
terms of raising hands and how quiet or
loud a classroom or a quote learning
environment is supposed to be versus an
informal learning environment such as
the playground or whether or not
students are walking in groups or
walking in a straight line when going
from one place of the school to the
other these are all forms of hidden or
implicit curriculum now another thing
that we also have to think about when
doing this kind of stuff is the tested
curriculum so this is what typically
dictates what is perceived as important
to know so if it's on the test that is
something that a student is going to
likely view as okay I need to know the
saying I need to do well on it and the
other stuff does not on the test I'm
going to ignore so if computer science
is a tested curriculum then the things
that are
test it on there such as conditionals
like if else if that's on the test
that's deemed is important but a
variables is not on the test well that's
not as important and one more that I'll
mention in terms of different ways to
look at to the curriculum is the null
curriculum so that is what is left out
so no school or curriculum is ever able
to teach everything so what students
don't have the opportunity to learn in
schools is referred to as a null
curriculum the reason why I'm bringing
up the intended top experienced embodied
hidden or implicit tested and null
curriculum is because these are all
different ways that we could analyze
different layers of curriculum itself in
this case a board game that is then
transferring hopefully transferring
knowledge into a digital environment now
I'll get off my soapbox you can tell
probably that I'm a bit of a curriculum
nerd and I really like to think through
all these different layers of things
when it comes to designing and
researching curricula in general I
really like the overall idea behind this
experience reports like the idea of
engaging in a tabletop board game and
then researching the transfer of
understandings into a digital
environment however I feel like the
paper itself could probably benefit from
an inclusion of scholarship on curricula
just to help clarify which layers we are
actually analyzing within the report
itself because I feel like follow-up
publications on this particular topic
could result in several different foci
that being said I really hope that the
authors do follow up studies where they
look at different variations that I had
previously mentioned and others that
were unmentioned as well as the
different layers that could be unpacked
in relation to curriculum design
curriculum implementation and how
curriculum is experienced or embodied by
kids I hope you enjoyed this episode
again all of the resources that I
mentioned in terms of the different
board games and platforms and things
like that are listed in the show notes
which you can find in the description
and I hope you consider sharing this
podcast with somebody else who might
find this beneficial before I close I
want to give a quick shout out to Karen
who is a coworker at the boot-up who is
helping me now with editing podcasts so
the episode that's gonna come out next
week
that's an interview Karen helped edit
that and it saved me a ton of time so I
could focus creating some other content
that will be released on our website so
thank you Karen I really appreciate the
efforts you've made it has made my life
a lot easier and lastly I want to thank
everybody who is listening to this thank
you so much I hope you all
a wonderful week and if you are in sixty
this week I will be there as long as
it's not canceled so hit me up and we
can talk shop and maybe unpack some more
layers of curriculum
Article
Lee, V. R., Poole, F., Clarke-Midura, J., Recker, M., & Rasmussen, M. (2020). Introducing Coding through Tabletop Board Games and Their Digital Instantiations across Elementary Classrooms and School Libraries. In Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 787–793. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366917
Abstract
“This experience report describes an approach for helping elementary schools integrate computational thinking and coding by leveraging existing resources and infrastructure that do not rely on 1-1 computing. A particular focus is using the school library and media center as a site to complement and enhance classroom instruction on coding. Further, our approach builds upon “unplugged” knowledge and practices that are already familiar to and motivating for students, in this case tabletop board games. Through these games, students can use their prior knowledge and ease with tabletop gaming mechanics to cue relevant ideas for core computational concepts. We describe a model and an instructional unit spanning across classroom and school library settings that builds upon board game play as a source domain for computing knowledge. Building on expansive framing, the model emphasizes instructional linkages being made between one domain (the tabletop board game) and another (specially designed Scratch project shells with partially complete code blocks) such that the reasoning activities and different contexts are seen as instantiations of the same encompassing context. We present the experiences of three elementary school teachers as they implemented the unit in their classrooms and with their school librarian. We also show initial findings on the impact of the unit on student interest (N=87), as measured by pre- and post- surveys. We conclude with lessons learned about ways to improve the unit and future classroom implementations.”
Author Keywords
Elementary school coding, CS unplugged, computational thinking, expansive framing
My One Sentence Summary
This experience report investigates the transfer of understanding when students begin learning CS through a tabletop board game and switch to a digital coding environment.
Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts
How might interest in CS compare with the following treatment groups: a) playing the board games only, b) playing the board game and moving into Scratch, and C) using Scratch only?
What about different unit that reverses it so kids start with Scratch and then learn the board game (i.e., plugged-to-unplugged)?
Is the purpose of the study to analyze the intended impact of the unit itself, how the unit was taught, or how students embodied the unit?
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
Contemporary Venues of Curriculum Inquiry
In this episode I unpack an excerpt from Schubert’s (2008) publication titled “Curriculum inquiry,” which describes different venues or types of curriculum that educators and education researchers should consider.
How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
Tabletop board games mentioned in the article
Curriculum scholars I mentioned
Curricular layers or avenues I mentioned
Intended curriculum
Taught curriculum
Experienced curriculum
Embodied curriculum
Hidden or implicit curriculum
Tested curriculum
Null curriculum
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