Teaching Kids Computational Thinking with Game Design Activities

Computational Thinking is an increasingly important problem solving tool in a variety of fields because it involves decomposing seemingly intractable problems into smaller, solvable problems, managing complexity with abstractions, and making tradeoffs between effort and accuracy. Because programming and computational thinking are not equivalent, this research focuses on teaching computational thinking concepts without the additional burden of learning to program. This thesis describes an interactive game design environment students can use to manipulate game rules in real time. The game provided by the environment is an easy-to-learn platform jumper style game, where the hero earns points by jumping from platform to platform. Students can adjust a variety of game rules while the game runs, including the size of the board, the hero???s agility, and the composition and position of the platforms. Students receive immediate feedback on the effectiveness of the game rules they choose because the game is always running. The environment features an unobtrusive data collection mechanism which allows researchers to answer specific questions about student behavior and engagement. For example, the data can answer questions such as: How long does it take a student to reach a certain point threshold? Are students more interested in playing the game or designing the game? What rules do students adjust most often? Student interaction with the environment was studied on three separate occasions with three separate groups of students. The retrospective questionnaires complement the environment by helping students articulate the trade-offs they considered when setting game rules. Questionnaire design focused on which combination of prompts and activities would best help students to articulate computational thinking skills. In some sessions students were encouraged to design games for their own enjoyment and in other sessions students were prompted to design games for another student to play. After providing the prompt, the questionnaires asked students to explain why they designed the game the way they did. The overall experience helps students build confidence in their problem solving abilities and demonstrated a data collection mechanism which can be used for further research.Computer Scienc