Forthcoming Curricular Changes within the Governmental Strategy of Digital Education in the Czech Republic
Abstract
The paper (i) describes the results achieved so far by both projects, (ii) evaluates collected experiences gained in collaboration with faculties of education, and (iii) presents some results of a case study focused on discovering how pupils of primary school (especially Year 3, 4 and 5) acquire, use and understand when designing programs involving selected commands and functions associated with some programming conditional statements (IF-THEN, IF-THEN-ELSE; REPEAT/ REPEAT-UNTIL). The research was carried out in 2017/18 at a small village school among 31 (17 girls and 14 boys) pupils of Years 3, 4 and 5 during 16 lessons of a compulsory subject "Work with a computer" (Čuma, 2018).
Research data were collected using video and audio records by means of: (1) observation of pupils' behavior and activities; (2) records of processes how pupils solved problems and tasks; (3) testing how pupils understand selected algorithmic concepts, and (4) the environment Code.org. Pupils were very often asked (i) to describe and interpret how they proceeded in solving a problem, (ii) to read the codes, and (iii) to interpret meaning of the assembled algorithms (using, for example, a vehicle made in Lego).
Collected data were added to data gained using the environment Code.org with the aim to analyse a progress in pupils' thinking.