Integrating computing into middle school disciplines through projects

Authors:
Susan Rodger;Melissa Dalis;Chitra Gadwal;Jenna Hayes;Peggy Li;Francine Wolfe;Wenhui Zhang;Liz Liang
Affiliations:
Duke University, Durham, NC, USA;Duke University, Durham, NC, USA;UMBC, Baltimore, MD, USA;Duke University, Durham, NC, USA;Duke University, Durham, NC, USA;Benedictine College, Atchinson, KS, USA;Duke University, Durham, NC, USA;Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
Venue:
Proceedings of the 43rd ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education
Year:
2012

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Abstract

For four years we have been integrating computing into a variety of middle school disciplines via the Alice programing language. Early on we focused on creating curriculum materials for teachers to use in teaching the basic programming and animation concepts. This paper describes our efforts over the past two years in creating model projects for students to build in all disciplines, and our most recent focus on science and mathematics projects. For science we have introduced experiments in Alice and the tools needed for them. In mathematics we have created projects to increase their understanding of programming and to use the projects to increase their understanding of mathematics. We also discuss our efforts in workshops to teach K-12 teachers Alice and an analysis of the teachers' lesson plans and worlds developed in the most recent workshop.