Programming to learn in Italian primary school

Abstract

The Italian Ministry of Education is promoting the introduction of coding and computational thinking at compulsory school level. One of the research initiatives being taken in this regard is Programming to Learn in Italian Primary School. The project's aim is to develop a vertical curriculum for the introduction of programming in Italian primary schools as a new expressive language for children. All the schoolchildren involved in the project attend a weekly computer lab class held throughout the school year. They work on individual projects during the first half of the year. Then, in the second half of the year, they work in small groups on a common theme that the teacher selects from those studied in class. In this poster, we report the work of a fifth-grade class (24 students -- 7 females and 17 males, aged 10-11) in the 2017-2018 school year. Findings from individual and group Scratch programs produced, self-evaluation questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with the groups are presented.