16_03_2018 Seminario eMadrid sobre «Pensamiento Computacional»

1. The COOL Lab
Barbara Sabitzer
Linz School of Education – STEM Education
Johannes Kepler Universität Linz
barbara.sabitzer@jku.at
A Cross-curricular Teaching-Learning-Lab
COOL = COoperative & COmputer-(Science)-supported & „cool“ Open Learning

2. Content
• The COOL Lab
• The Concept
• Areas, Activities & Tasks
• Conclusion & Outlook
The COOL Lab 2

3. The COOL Lab
• An open meeting place for
• Teaching, Learning & Research
• Primary, Secondary & Higher Education
• Aims at
• Increasing interest for Informatics & STEM
• Introducing computational thinking in all subjects
• Increasing digital literacy and other 21st century skills
• Enhancing (subject-specific) didactical competences
• Developing and providing innovative cross-curricular
teaching units and materials
• Interweaving research, teacher education, in-service
training with teaching and school practice
The COOL Lab 3

4. Visitors & Target Groups
• Target groups
• children (> 4 years) and adolescents
• (future) teachers and school classes
• students and (future) researchers
• everybody who is curious and interested
• All visitors can
• explore innovative and effective approaches to learning
and teaching in all subjects,
• discover and use (instructional) technologies and
• computer science concepts (CT) and techniques
as tools for teaching and learning in all subjects
The COOL Lab 4

5. The Concept
• Teaching concept: COOL Informatics
• based on neurodidactics & effective teaching methods
• 4 principles: discovery, cooperation, individuality, activity
• Working concept: Talents exchange & Peer teaching
• Every visitor can be
• Teacher, learner, researcher, developer, creator etc.
• Depending on interests, talents & competencies
• Results: Innovative (learning) products
• Material and experience exchange
• Digital products
• Research: Teaching across the subjects
• Teaching methods
• Computational thinking & instructional technology
• Labs in teacher education
The COOL Lab 5

6. Main Areas
• Informatics Lab (visitors > 4 years)
• Increasing interest and comprehension in Computer Science
• Computational thinking & digital literacy
• Computer Science & Instructional technology
• COOL Talents Club (grades 5-9)
• Promoting young talents in STEM
• Interdisciplinary projects
• Teaching-Learning-Lab (students, teachers & docents)
• Interweaving teacher education, in-service training and practice
• Innovative and effective teaching and learning methods for
• Primary, secondary and higher education
• Research Lab (students, reserachers)
• Ideas, workshops & test groups for (pre-) scientific work
• Language(s)
• Natural and formal languages
The COOL Lab 7

7. COOL Lab
Activities & Tasks
Computational Thinking & Digital Literacy
Teaching & Learning

8. Fashion & Coding
The COOL Lab 9
http://neu4bauer.blogspot.co.at/2011/04/freebie-vintage-pattern-from-our-april.html
Declaration of
variables
Encoding

9. The COOL Lab 10
Algorithm
Algorithm
Modeling
Encoding
Sewing patterns

10. The COOL Lab 11

11. Logic: Boolean Algebra & Digital
Circuits
Maxi‘s birthday is in carnival. He invites some of his
friends for a birthday party. The children, who come to
the party, wear a mask OR bring a birthday present. All of
them who are wearing a mask OR bring a gift get a piece
of the cake. The others only drink milk.
• How many pieces of cake and
how many cups of chocolate
are needed?
• How many pieces are needed
when only children who wear
a mask AND bring a gift eat a
cake.
The COOL Lab 12
✔ = yes = 1
✗ = no = 0

12. True or false?
Truth Tables: OR
The COOL Lab 13

13. The Computer City
Discovery Learning, Playing
The COOL Lab 14

14. Hardware & Information Processing
Animation Game
The COOL Lab 15
We are a computer!

15. Hardware Memory
Designing Games
The COOL Lab 16
Hardware Memory Game
Output
Printer
Input
Scanner

16. Languages + Computer Science = COOL
Game Design & Spreadsheets [2]
17
* Tandem * Scrabble
* Tandoku
* Quartet cards
* Verb conjugator
* Encyclopedia
The COOL Lab

17. Research Focus: Modeling
1. How and where can we introduce modeling in
primary and secondary education?
2. Which modeling techniques are useful and
practicable for teachers and students without
informatics background?
3. Which dimensions of the modeling process are or
shall be part of general education?
4. Is it possible to improve general learning
competencies like abstraction, problem solving, text
comprehension etc. by a frequent and varied use of
modeling in primary and secondary education?
The COOL Lab 18

18. COOL in Practice:
Modeling in English Lessons
The COOL Lab 19
Notation of ER-diagrams in English as foreign language [4]

19. From a text to a model [3]
The COOL Lab 20

20. From a model to a text
The COOL Lab 21

21. Practicability & Usability
The COOL Lab 22
yes
40%
Maybe
22%
No
17%
No answer
21%
Use in future learning situations
yes
Maybe
No
No answer
N = 85 (grades 5-8) Modeling in English as foreign language[25]

22. Comprehension (2/2)
• Evaluation of posters
• Problems and Challenges
• Relation and entity in one shape1
• Relation between entity and attribute2
• Abstraction difficult
• Incorrect or missing attributes
• Teacher opinion
• Easy to understand but
• Difficult to apply
(because of uncertaintey concerning CS criteria)
The COOL Lab 23
Typical error 1
Typical error 2

23. Posters
The COOL Lab 24

24. Acceptance (1/2)
• Qualitative results
(interviews, observation, discussion, questionnaires)
• Useful tool in different subjects for
• Representing and struturing information and knowledge
• Preparation of presentations (cheat scheets)
• Can foster creativity
• Helps to extract important information
• Fun
• Generalization is difficult (for teachers and students)
• Why not mindmaps? [4]
The COOL Lab 25

25. Acceptance (2/2)
The COOL Lab 26
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
ER
Flow
58
67
8
3
5
Satisfaction
1 2 3
Satisfaction (1 very high – 3 low)
NFlow = 71, NER = 70 [4]

26. Conclusion
• Informatics Lab increases interest of children and
comprehension of difficult concepts and topics in
CS
• Modeling & Computational Thinking (CT)
• Useful in all subjects
• Easy to learn and apply for students without informatics
• 2 steps: 1. correct shapes 2. abstraction, generalization
• COOL Informatics Concept
• Flexible, motivating, effective,
• Appropriate for cross-curricular lessons & projects
• Effective especially for females
• Helps
The COOL Lab 27

27. Outlook
• COOL Talents Club
• COOL Informatics for STEM education
• Modeling across the subjects
• Erasmus+ Key Action 2 Strategic Partnership
• Further studies in different subjects concerning
• text comprehension & extraction of core information
• generalization and abstraction
• Effect of different concepts for different purposes
• COOL International Online Lab – Partners?
• International Network Computational Thinking
The COOL Lab 28

28. Questions?
Discussion!
Cooperation?
Barbara Sabitzer
barbara.sabitzer@jku.at

29. References
1. Sabitzer, B. (2014). A Neurodidactical Approach to Cooperative and Cross-curricular Open Learning: “COOL Informatics”. (Habilitation thesis). Alpen-
Adria-Universität, Klagenfurt.
2. Sabitzer, B. (2012). Spreadsheets for Language Learning - Creative Ideas for Informatics and Foreign Language Lessons. In: CSEDU 2012, International
Conference on Computer Supported Education, Conference Proceedings. Portugal: SciTePress – Science Technology Publications, pp. 129-134.
3. Sabitzer, B.; Pasterk, S. (2015). Modeling: A Computer Science Concept for General Education. In: Proceedings of IEEE Conference Frontiers in
Education, October 2015, El Paso, Texas.
4. Salbrechter, C.; Kölblinger, I.; Sabitzer B. (2015). Modeling – A Computational Thinking Concept And Tool For Cross-Curricular Teaching. INTED 2015
Proceedings, pp. 4280-4290.
The COOL Lab 30