Digital Media and Parent/Child Engagement Resources to Increase Preschool Computational Thinking

数字媒体和家长/儿童参与资源可提高学前计算思维

• 批准号: 1612642
• 负责人: Marisa Wolsky
• 金额: $ 300万
• 依托单位: WGBH Educational Foundation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-15 至 2021-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1612642&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Digital; Media; Parent; Child; Engagement

This project will capitalize on the power of story to teach foundational computational thinking (CT) concepts through the creation of animated and live-action videos, paired with joint media engagement activities, for preschool children and their parents. Exposure at a young age to CT is critical for preparing all students to engage with the technologies that have become central to nearly every occupation. But despite this recognized need, there are few, if any, resources that (1) introduce CT to young children; (2) define the scope of what should be taught; and (3) provide evidence-based research on effective strategies for bringing CT to a preschool audience. To meet these needs, WGBH and Education Development Center/Center for Children and Technology (EDC/CCT) will utilize an iterative research and design process to create animated and live-action videos paired with joint media engagement activities for parents and preschool children, titled "Monkeying Around". Animated videos will model for children how to direct their curiosity into a focused exploration of the problem-solving process. Live-action videos will feature real kids and their parents and will further illustrate how helpful CT can be for problem solving. With their distinctive visual humor and captivating storytelling, the videos will be designed to entice parents to watch alongside their children. This is important since parents will play an important role in guiding them in explorations that support their CT learning. To further promote joint media engagement, hands-on activities will accompany the videos. Following the creation of these resources, an experimental impact study will be conducted to capture evidence as to if and how these resources encourage the development of young children's computational thinking, and to assess parents' comfort and interest in the subject. Concurrent with this design-based research process, the project will build on the infrastructure of state systems of early education and care (which have been awarded Race to the Top grants) and local public television stations to design and develop an outreach initiative to reach parents. Additional partners--National Center for Women & Information Technology, Code in Schools, and code.org (all of whom are all dedicated to promoting CT)--will further help bring this work to a national audience. Can parent/child engagement with digital media and hands-on activities improve children's early learning of computational thinking? To answer this question, WGBH and EDC/CCT are collaborating on a design-based research process with children and their parents to create Monkeying Around successive interactions. The overarching goal of this mixed-methods research effort is to generate evidence that supports the development of recommendations around the curricular, instructional, and contextual factors that support or impede children's acquisition of CT as a result of digital media viewing and hands-on engagement. Moving through cycles of implementation, observation, analysis, and revision over the course of three years, EDC/CCT researchers will work closely with families and WGBH's development team to determine how children learn the fundamentals of CT, how certain learning tasks can demonstrate what children understand, how to stimulate interest in hands-on activities, and the necessary scaffolds to support parental involvement in the development of children's CT. Each phase of the research will provide rich feedback to inform the next cycle of content development and will include: Phase 1: the formulation of three learning blueprints (for algorithmic thinking, sequencing, and patterns); Phase 2: the development of a cohesive set of learning tasks to provide evidence of student learning, as well as the production of a prototype of the digital media and parent/child engagement resources (algorithmic thinking); Phase 3-Part A: pilot research on the prototype, revisions, production of two additional prototypes (sequencing and patterns); Phase 3-Part B: pilot research on the three prototypes and revisions; and Phase 4: production of 27 animated and live-action videos and 18 parent/child engagement activities and a study of their impact. Through this process, the project team will build broader knowledge about how to design developmentally appropriate resources promoting CT for preschool children and will generate data on how to stimulate interest in hands-on activities and the necessary scaffolds to support parental involvement in the development of children's CT. The entire project represents an enormous opportunity for WGBH and for the informal STEM media field to learn more about how media can facilitate informal CT learning in the preschool years and ways to broaden participation by building parents' capacity to support STEM learning. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.

该项目将利用故事的力量通过创建动画和真人视频，并与幼儿园的孩子及其父母一起创建动画和真人视频，并与共同的媒体参与活动进行教学的力量。年轻时接触CT对于准备所有学生参与几乎所有职业核心的技术都至关重要。但是，尽管有这种认可的需求，但（如果有的话）（1）将CT引入幼儿的资源很少； （2）定义应该教的内容的范围； （3）提供基于证据的研究，以将CT带给学龄前受众的有效策略。为了满足这些需求，WGBH和教育开发中心/儿童与技术中心（EDC/CCT）将利用迭代研究和设计过程来制作动画和真人视频，并为父母和学龄前儿童的联合媒体参与活动配对，标题为“周围的人”。 动画视频将为儿童建模如何将好奇心引导到对解决问题过程的重点探索中。真人视频将以真实的孩子及其父母为特色，并将进一步说明CT对解决问题的有用。这些视频将凭借独特的视觉幽默和迷人的讲故事，旨在吸引父母与孩子一起观看。这很重要，因为父母将在指导他们支持其CT学习的探索中发挥重要作用。为了进一步促进联合媒体参与，视频将伴随动手活动。创建这些资源后，将进行一项实验影响研究，以捕获证据，表明这些资源是否以及如何鼓励幼儿的计算思维发展，并评估父母对这一主题的舒适和兴趣。该项目与这个基于设计的研究过程一致，将建立在早期教育和护理的国家系统基础设施的基础上（已被授予最高赠款的竞赛）和当地的公共电视台，以设计和制定推出计划，以供父母接触父母。 其他合作伙伴 - 妇女和信息技术，学校代码和Code.org（所有这些都致力于促进CT）的中心 - 将进一步帮助将这项工作带给全国受众。父母/儿童与数字媒体和动手活动的互动能否改善儿童对计算思维的早期学习？为了回答这个问题，WGBH和EDC/CCT正在与孩子及其父母合作，与孩子及其父母进行基于设计的研究过程，以围绕连续的互动创建怪物。这项混合方法研究工作的总体目标是生成证据，以支持围绕课程，教学和上下文因素的建议，这些因素支持或阻碍了由于数字媒体查看和动手操作而导致儿童获得CT的收购。 Moving through cycles of implementation, observation, analysis, and revision over the course of three years, EDC/CCT researchers will work closely with families and WGBH's development team to determine how children learn the fundamentals of CT, how certain learning tasks can demonstrate what children understand, how to stimulate interest in hands-on activities, and the necessary scaffolds to support parental involvement in the development of children's CT.研究的每个阶段都将提供丰富的反馈，以告知内容开发的下一个周期，并包括：1阶段：三个学习蓝图的制定（用于算法思维，测序和模式）；第2阶段：开发一组有凝聚力的学习任务，以提供学生学习的证据，以及生产数字媒体和父母/儿童参与资源的原型（算法思维）；第三阶段A：关于原型的试验研究，修订，生产两个其他原型（测序和模式）；第三阶段B：对三种原型和修订的试点研究；和第4阶段：制作27个动画和真人视频以及18种父母/儿童参与活动以及对其影响的研究。通过此过程，项目团队将建立有关如何设计适当的开发资源为学龄前儿童促进CT的广泛知识，并将生成有关如何刺激对动手活动的兴趣以及支持父母参与儿童CT发展的数据。整个项目为WGBH和非正式STEM媒体领域提供了巨大的机会，以了解有关媒体如何促进学龄前年份非正式CT学习的更多信息，以及通过建立父母支持STEM学习的能力来扩大参与的方式。 该项目由非正式的STEM学习（AISL）计划资助，该计划旨在推进对非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。这包括提供多种途径，以扩大对STEM学习经验的访问和参与度，推进对非正式环境中STEM学习的创新研究，并发展参与者对更深入学习的理解。