Abstract
This paper investigates unplugged computing as a formal pedagogical strategy to teaching computing to a Maltese secondary class of Year 9 students. It aims at identifying the effectiveness of this pedagogy outlining the strengths and weaknesses in its application, taking into consideration the level of attainment for students, as well as the impact on teachers’ lesson preparation. This research study is based on the delivery of five unplugged activities. It analyses students’ reaction when exposed to such unplugged activities to assess the viability of using this pedagogy when teaching computing concepts in a formal setting. The study concludes that unplugged computing is an effective pedagogical strategy that helps attain a high level of engagement and student involvement, encouraging teamwork and collaboration. Students experience a wide attention span and good retention through the constant link of computing scenarios to real-life examples and the use of tangible non-computing related objects. Notwithstanding, the study also identifies certain limitations of this pedagogy, mainly that it is not sufficient as a standalone pedagogy, but needs to be applied in conjunction with other pedagogies to be able to cover all the expected learning objectives of the curriculum.
Highlights
Teaching computer science in school is quite a challenge, which is evident from both the learners’ as well as the educators’ perspective
This study aims to assess CS Unplugged as a pedagogical strategy in teaching national computing curriculum topics to secondary school students
Six main themes emerged from the thematic analysis of the observations and recorded discussions between the researchers and the class teacher, as well as the assessment worksheets worked by the students following each unplugged activity
Summary
Teaching computer science in school is quite a challenge, which is evident from both the learners’ as well as the educators’ perspective. Many students view computer science negatively; some feel that this field lacks excitement and is considered monotonous. From the other side of the class, teachers find Computing too hard for most students to comprehend They feel that the abstract part of Computing is complex to teach, especially with examples like algorithms, programming and computational thinking skills (Sentance & Csizmadia, 2017). Another challenge is that the teacher needs to be able
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