Kinesthetic learning of computing via "off-beat" activities

Authors:
Ursula Wolz;Michael Milazzo;Meredith Stone
Affiliations:
The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ, USA;g8four, Mountain Brook, AL, USA;The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ, USA
Venue:
Proceedings of the 16th annual joint conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Year:
2011

Citing 4
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Abstract

To broaden participation in computing requires exposing students to a variety of experiences. CS Unplugged promotes learning through kinesthetic activities. This paper identifies three types of learning (1) problem solving, (2) creative construction, and (3) open-ended invention, that lend themselves to activities that engage middle school students in physical movement to learn computing. Via surveys and a personality traits activity "True Colors" we examined whether self-identified personality types were predisposed to particular kinesthetic learning activities. Our results suggest that personality type as defined by True Colors does not predict selection of an activity type. Furthermore, the students in our summer Interactive Journalism Institute were significantly more predisposed to pick open-ended invention. These results suggest directions in which K-12 computing curriculum should take to reach the broadest constituency.