Playfully Coding Science: Views from Preservice Science Teacher Education

Abstract

There is now a growing body of research focused on integrating computational thinking and modeling in teacher education, ranging from studies that investigate preservice teachers’ perceptions of computational thinking to those that evaluate the efficacy of computational tools that can support such integration. Our work extends this literature by investigating how preservice science teachers can be introduced to computational thinking and modeling by playfully designing computer simulations and games for modeling kinematics and ecological interdependence. Adopting a phenomenological research agenda, we focus on how preservice science teachers experience coding and computational modeling as pedagogical experiences for science education. In doing so, our goal is to contribute to an epistemological, rather than an instrumental, understanding of computational thinking and modeling in the context of preservice science teacher education.