This two-year project is a starting point of long term interdisciplinary and intercultural collaboration towards developing Nordic approach to integrate computational thinking (CT) in K-12 education.
In this project, our aim is to build common understanding about CT among the collaborators and widen our thinking about how to include future technologies (e.g., AI, autonomous transportation, cyber security) into CT through perspectives from different fields, such as educational sciences and computer science. The project involves schools and universities as participating institutions.
Through this project we are enhancing professional development of teachers who are interested in applying CT and maker education into their classrooms, and building networks among participating institutions. As outcome of the project we develop a versatile assessment tool which can be used in various cases beyond different conditions (e.g., curriculum, activity, pupils’ grade level and interests). In this way we tackle the challenges of current effort to integrate CT into school curriculum.
1) In core workshops, researchersfrom participating universities and selected members from schools (ambassador teachers), shareperspectives and practices towards CT, maker education and assessment. In addition, participantsdiscuss how those concepts appear in each country's school curriculum.
2) In the local workshops, participants from partner universities and schools, as well as participants from outside of the partnerinstitutions (with their own cost) are actively involved in the processes of designing and evaluating theoutcomes of core group workshops considering local specific conditions.
Outcomes of both workshops are used to develop the assessment tool for CT in K-12 education.