Abstract
In this research we explore the extent to which computational thinking (CT) is evident in 3–6 year-old children's free play. CT is increasingly viewed as an important aspect of a child’s school learning. Typically, CT is connected to learning with computers. Yet, much of learning in the early years is play-based, spontaneous, often learner-initiated, and without technology. Teacher engagement with young learners is important in supporting learning, understanding what learners know, and also in potentially advancing a learner’s understanding. The relative newness of CT for many teachers suggests that teachers may not recognize CT during play. We used several frameworks to examine CT. Video clips and images of children in the classroom setting were examined by the researchers and teachers to identify instances of CT. Evidence of CT was found in children’s free play. Implications for early years’ teachers are discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aho, A. V. (2012). Computation and computational thinking. The Computer Journal, 55(7), 832–835. https://doi.org/10.1093/comjnl/bxs074
Aunio, P., Heiskari, P., Van Luit, J. E. H., & Vuorio, J.-M. (2015). The development of early numeracy skills in kindergarten in low-, average- and high-performance groups. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 13(1), 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718x14538722
Barr, V., & Stephenson, C. (2011). Bringing computational thinking to K-12: What is involved and what is the role of the computer science education community? ACM Inroads, 2(1), 48–54. https://doi.org/10.1145/1929887.1929905?casa_token=8_jH2OBZk4EAAAAA:KyHwTl_ECagucrfLs98dzEHVApaSngZBlfHSYKzRpFuXFYv_elS_h-x_0C6w4mYUeiKlOQwP0hWm
Berry, M. (2013). Computing in the national curriculum. A guide for primary teachers. Computing at School. https://www.computingatschool.org.uk/data/uploads/CASPrimaryComputing.pdf
Bers, M. U., Flannery, L., Kazakoff, E. R., & Sullivan, A. (2014). Computational thinking and tinkering: Exploration of an early childhood robotics curriculum. Computers & Education, 72, 145–157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2013.10.020
Brendefur, J., Strother, S., Thiede, K., Lane, C., & Surges-Prokop, M. J. (2013). A professional development program to improve math skills among preschool children in head start. Early Childhood Education Journal, 41, 187–195. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-012-0543-8
Brennan, K., & Resnick, M. (2012). New frameworks for studying and assessing the development of computational thinking. American Educational Research Association, British Columbia, Canada. https://web.media.mit.edu/~kbrennan/files/Brennan_Resnick_AERA2012_CT.pdf
British Columbia Government. (2016). $6 million to help connect students with coding, new curriculum and computers. Retrieved August 11 from https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2016PREM0065-000994
Broadhead, P., Howard, J., & Wood, E. (Eds.). (2010). Play and learning in the early years. Sage Publications.
Chen, G., Shen, J., Barth-Cohen, L., Jiang, S., Huang, X., & Eltoukhy, M. (2017). Assessing elementary students’ computational thinking in everyday reasoning and robotics programming. Computers & Education, 109, 162–175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2017.03.001
Curzon, P. (2013). cs4fn and computational thinking unplugged. WiPSE ’13 Proceedings of the 8th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education. https://doi.org/10.1145/2532748.2611263
Curzon, P., McOwan, P., Plant, N., & Meagher, L. (2014). Introducing teachers to computational thinking using unplugged storytelling. WiPSCE’14 Proceedings of the 9th Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education. https://doi.org/10.1145/2670757.2670767
Duncan, G. J., Dowsett, C. J., Claessens, A., Magnuson, K., Huston, A. C., Klebanov, P., Pagani, L. S., Feinstein, L., Engel, M., Brooks-Gunn, J., Sexton, H., Duckworth, K., & Japel, C. (2007). School readiness and later achievement. Developmental Psychology, 43(6), 1428–1446. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.43.6.1428
Furber, S. (2012). Shut down or restart? The way forward for computing in UK schools. In: The Royal Society Education Section. Retrieved April 4, 2021, from https://royalsociety.org/~/media/education/computing-in-schools/2012-01-12-computing-in-schools.pdf
Government of England. (2013). National curriculum in England: Computing programmes of study. Retrieved June 29, 2015, from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-computing-programmes-of-study
Hirsh-Pasek, K., Michnick Golinkoff, R., Berk, L. E., & Singer, D. G. (2009). A mandate for playful learning in preschool. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kennedy-Lewis, B. L. (2012). When a teacher becomes a researcher: Using self-narrative to define one’s role as participant observer. Theory Into Practice, 51(2), 107–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2012.662865
Kotsopoulos, D., Floyd, L., Khan, S., Namukasa, I. K., Somanath, S., Weber, J., & Yiu, C. (2017). A pedagogical framework for computational thinking. Digital Experiences in Mathematics Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40751-017-0031-2
Kotsopoulos, D., & Lee, J. (2013). What are the development enhancing features of mathematical play? An Leanbh Óg: The OMEP Ireland Journal of Early Childhood Studies, 7, 47–68. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Donna-Kotsopoulos/publication/280319774_What_are_the_development_enhancing_features_of_mathematical_play/links/55b2988508ae9289a0858d56/What-are-the-development-enhancing-features-of-mathematical-play.pdf
Kotsopoulos, D., & Lee, J. (2014). Let’s talk about math: The LittleCounters® approach to building early math skills. Brookes Publishing Co., Inc. http://products.brookespublishing.com/Lets-Talk-About-Math-P763.aspx
Lamagna, E. (2015). Algorithmic thinking unplugged. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 30(6), 45–52. https://doi.org/10.5555/2753024.2753036
LeMay, S., Costantino, T., OConnor, S., & ContePitcher, E. (2014). Screen time for children. IDC’14 Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Interaction design and children. https://doi.org/10.1145/2593968.2610456
Nishida, T., Kanemune, S., Idosaka, Y., Namiki, M., Bell, T., & Kuno, Y. (2009). A CS unplugged design pattern. SIGCSE, 41(1), 231–235. https://doi.org/10.1145/1508865.1508951
van Oers, B. (2010). Emergent mathematical thinking in the context of play. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 74(1), 23–37. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-009-9225-x
Province of Nova Scotia. (2015). Minister announces coding as a priority during education day. Retrieved August 11 from http://novascotia.ca/news/release/?id=20151021002
Resnick, M., Maloney, J., Monroy-Hernandez, A., Rusk, N., Eastmond, E., Brennan, K., Millner, A., Rosenbaum, E., Silver, J., Silverman, B., & Kafai, Y. B. (2009). Scratch: programming for all. Communications of the ACM, 52(11), 60–67. https://doi.org/10.1145/1592761.1592779
Sanford, J. F., & Naidu, J. T. (2016). Computational thinking concepts for grade school. Contemporary Issues in Education Research (Online), 9(1), 23. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1087584
Seiter, L., & Foreman, B. (2013). Modeling the learning progressions of computational thinking of primary grade students. Ninth Annual International ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research, San Diego, San California. https://doi.org/10.1145/2493394.2493403
Seo, K.-H., & Ginsburg, H. (2004). What is developmentally appropriate in early childhood mathematics education? Lessons from new research. In D. H. Clements, J. Sarama, & A.-M. DiBiase (Eds.), Engaging young children in mathematics: Standards for early childhood mathematics education. (pp. 91–104). Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.
Simpson, A., & Linder, S. M. (2014). An examination of mathematics professional development opportunities in early childhood settings. Early Childhood Education Journal, 42, 335–342. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-013-0612-7
Sitra. (2014). Future will be built by those who know how to code. Retrieved June 29, 2015, from http://www.sitra.fi/en/artikkelit/well-being/future-will-be-built-those-who-know-how-code
Sneider, C., Stephenson, C., Schafer, B., & Flick, L. (2014). Exploring the science framework and NGSS: Computational thinking in the science classroom. Science Scope, 38(3), 10–15. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Larry-Flick/publication/284351804_Computational_Thinking_in_High_School_Science_Classrooms/links/5872de2208ae6eb871c51cff/Computational-Thinking-in-High-School-Science-Classrooms.pdf
Taub, T., Armoni, M., & Ben-Ari, M. (2012). CS Unplugged and middle-school students’ views, attitudes, and intentions regarding CS. ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE), 12(2), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1145/2160547.2160551
Thies, R., & Vahrenhold, J. (2013). On plugging “unplugged” into CS classes. SIGCSE ’13 Proceeding of the 44th ACM Technical symposium on computer science education. https://doi.org/10.1145/2445196.2445303
Varol, F., Farran, D. C., Bilbrey, C., Vorhaus, E. A., & Hofer, K. G. (2012). Professional development for preschool teachers: Evidence for practice. NHSA Dialog, 15(1), 122–126. https://doi.org/10.1080/15240754.2011.638742
Weintrop, D., Beheshti, E., Horn, M., Orton, K., Jona, K., Trouille, L., & Wilensky, U. (2016). Defining computational thinking for mathematics and science classrooms. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 25(1), 127–147. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-015-9581-5
Wing, J. M. (2006). Computational thinking. Communications of the ACM., 49, 33–35. https://doi.org/10.1145/1118178.1118215
Yadav, A., Mayfield, C., Zhou, N., Hambrusch, S., & Korb, J. T. (2014). Computational thinking in elementary and secondary teacher education. ACM Transactions on Computing Education, 14(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1145/2576872
Funding
Funding was provided by Social Science and Humanities Research Council (Grant No. 435-2014-1111).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
There are no known conflict of interest.
Ethical approval
Ethics approval for this research was secured from Wilfrid Laurier University.
Informed consent
Participant consent was secured.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kotsopoulos, D., Floyd, L., Dickson, B.A. et al. Noticing and Naming Computational Thinking During Play. Early Childhood Educ J 50, 699–708 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-021-01188-z
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-021-01188-z