More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/

research-article

Teaching graph algorithms to children of all ages

Author:

J. Paul GibsonAuthors Info & Claims

ITiCSE '12: Proceedings of the 17th ACM annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education

Pages 34 - 39

https://doi.org/10.1145/2325296.2325308

Published: 03 July 2012 Publication History

Abstract

We report on our experiences in teaching graph theory and algorithms to school children, aged 5 to 17. Our objectives were to demonstrate that children can discover quite complex mathematical concepts, and are able to work with abstractions and use computation reasoning from quite an early age. We provide details of our incremental approach, which can be used with students of a wide range of abilities. Also, we comment on the importance of problem based learning where the algorithms are presented as possible solutions to games or puzzles. Finally, we conclude with a number of important observations with regard to the introduction of computer science into schools.

References

[1]

D. Ball, U. S. 0. of Educational Research, and Improvement. Research on teaching mathematics: Making subject matter knowledge part of the equation. National Center for Research on Teacher Education, Michigan State University, 1988.

[2]

T. Bell. A low-cost high-impact computer science show for family audiences. 23rd Australasian Computer Science Conference, 00:10-16, 2000.

[3]

G. M. Bianco and S. Tinazzi. One step further the ACM K-12 final report: a proposal for level 1: computer organization for K-8. In ITICSE '06: Proceedings of the 11th annual SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education, pages 207-211, New York, NY, USA, 2006. ACM.

Digital Library

[4]

J. Bruner. The process of education. Harvard University Press, 1960.

[5]

M. D. Byrne, R. Catrambone, and J. T. Stasko. Evaluating animations as student aids in learning computer algorithms. Comput. Educ., 33:253--278, December 1999.

Digital Library

[6]

S. da Rosa. Designing algorithms in high school mathematics. In C. N. Dean and R. T. Boute, editors, TFM, volume 3294 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 17--31. Springer, 2004.

[7]

W. Feurzeig, S. Papert, M. Bloom, R. Grant, and C. Solomon. Programming-languages as a conceptual framework for teaching mathematics. SIGCUE Outlook, 4:13--17, April 1970.

Digital Library

[8]

G. Futschek. Algorithmic thinking: The key for understanding computer science. In R. Mittermeir, editor, ISSEP, volume 4226 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 159--168. Springer, 2006.

Digital Library

[9]

J. Gal-Ezer, C. Beeri, D. Hare!, and A. Yehudai. A high school program in computer science. IEEE Computer, 28(10) :73--80, 1995.

Digital Library

[10]

J.P. Gibson. A noughts and crosses Java applet to teach programming to primary school children. In J. F. Power and J. Waldron, editors, Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Principles and Practice of Programming in Java (PPPJ 2003), volume 42 of ACM International Conference Proceeding Series, pages 85--88, Kilkenny City, Ireland, 2003. ACM.

Digital Library

[11]

J.P. Gibson. Formal methods- never too young to start. In Z. Istenes, editor, Formal Methods in Computer Science Education (FORMED 2008), pages 151--160, Budapest, Hungary, Mar. 2008.

[12]

J.P. Gibson and J. O'Kelly. Software engineering as a model of understanding for learning and problem solving. In ICER '05: Proceedings of the 2005 international workshop on Computing education research, pages 87--97, New York, NY, USA, 2005. ACM.

Digital Library

[13]

M. Guzdial. Learning how to prepare computer science high school teachers. Computer, 44:95--97, 2011.

Digital Library

[14]

0. Hazzan, J. Gal-Ezer, and L. Blum. A model for high school computer science education: the four key elements that make it! In Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, SIGCSE '08, pages 281--285, New York, NY, USA, 2008. ACM.

Digital Library

[15]

0. Hazzan and I. Hadar. Reducing abstraction when learning graph theory. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 24(3) :255, 2005.

[16]

J. M. D. Hill, C. K. Ray, J. R. S. Blair, and C. A. Carver, Jr. Puzzles and games: addressing different learning styles in teaching operating systems concepts. SIGCSE Bull., 35:182--186, January 2003.

Digital Library

[17]

C. Kelleher, R. Pausch, and S. Kiesler. Storytelling alice motivates middle school girls to learn computer programming. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, CHI '07, pages 1455--1464, New York, NY, USA, 2007. ACM.

Digital Library

[18]

J. Kramer. Is abstraction the key to computing? Commun. ACM, 50(4):36--42, 2007.

Digital Library

[19]

A. Levitin and M.-A. Papalaskari. Using puzzles in teaching algorithms. SIGCSE Bull., 34:292--296, February 2002.

Digital Library

[20]

P. Martin-Lof. Constructive mathematics and computer programming. Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science VI, pages 153--175, 1982.

[21]

B. Parhami. Puzzling problems in computer engineering. Computer, 42(3):26--29, 2009.

Digital Library

[22]

S. Pollard and R. C. Duvall. Everything I needed to know about teaching I learned in kindergarten: bringing elementary education techniques to undergraduate computer science classes. SIGCSE Bull., 38:224--228, March 2006j

Digital Library

[23]

J. Wing. Computational thinking and thinking about computing. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 366(1881) :3717--3725, 2008.

Cited By

Metin ŞBaşaran MSeheryeli MRelkin EKalyenci D(2024)Adaptation of the Computational Thinking Skills Assessment Tool (TechCheck-K) in Early ChildhoodJournal of Science Education and Technology10.1007/s10956-023-10089-233:3(365-382)Online publication date: 2-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-023-10089-2
Metin ŞKalyenci DBaşaran MRelkin EBilir B(2024)Design-Based Digital Story Program: Enhancing Coding and Computational Thinking Skills in Early Childhood EducationEarly Childhood Education Journal10.1007/s10643-024-01728-3Online publication date: 23-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-024-01728-3
Leung SWu JLi JLam YNg O(2024)Examining Young Children’s Computational Thinking through Animation ArtEarly Childhood Education Journal10.1007/s10643-024-01694-wOnline publication date: 11-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-024-01694-w
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Teaching graph algorithms to children of all ages
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education

Recommendations

Teaching how to teach computational thinking
ITiCSE 2018: Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

Computational Thinking is argued to be an essential skill for the workforce of the 21st century. As a skill, Computational Thinking should be taught in all schools, employing computational ideas integrated into other disciplines. Up until now, questions ...
Sports Analytics as a Context for Computational Thinking in K-12 Education
SIGCSE '19: Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

As educational jurisdictions around the world begin to integrate computational thinking (CT) into their K-12 mandatory curriculum, there is a need to ensure that classroom activities are engaging, relate to student interests, and effectively promote the ...
Alice Summer Camps: Evaluating Multiple Formats
ALICE '13: Proceedings of Alice Symposium on Alice Symposium

During the summer of 2009, an Alice camp was taught to gifted students in our region. The following year our department secured an NSF CPATH Grant for Computational Thinking, grant number 0939106. In 2010 we hosted two weeks of our Adventures with Alice ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ITiCSE '12: Proceedings of the 17th ACM annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education

July 2012

424 pages

ISBN:9781450312462

DOI:10.1145/2325296

Conference Chairs:
Tami Lapidot
Technion, Israel
,
Judith Gal-Ezer
The Open University, Israel
,
Program Chairs:
Michael E. Caspersen
Aarhus University, Denmark
,
Orit Hazzan
Technion, Israel

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

Bilkent University: Bilkent University
SIGCSE: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 03 July 2012

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

ITiCSE '12

Sponsor:

Bilkent University
SIGCSE

ITiCSE '12: Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

July 3 - 5, 2012

Haifa, Israel

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 552 of 1,613 submissions, 34%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

47
Total Citations
View Citations
786
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)38
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)4

Reflects downloads up to 26 Dec 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Metin ŞBaşaran MSeheryeli MRelkin EKalyenci D(2024)Adaptation of the Computational Thinking Skills Assessment Tool (TechCheck-K) in Early ChildhoodJournal of Science Education and Technology10.1007/s10956-023-10089-233:3(365-382)Online publication date: 2-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-023-10089-2
Metin ŞKalyenci DBaşaran MRelkin EBilir B(2024)Design-Based Digital Story Program: Enhancing Coding and Computational Thinking Skills in Early Childhood EducationEarly Childhood Education Journal10.1007/s10643-024-01728-3Online publication date: 23-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-024-01728-3
Leung SWu JLi JLam YNg O(2024)Examining Young Children’s Computational Thinking through Animation ArtEarly Childhood Education Journal10.1007/s10643-024-01694-wOnline publication date: 11-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-024-01694-w
Başaran MMetin ŞVural Ö(2024)Meta-thematic synthesis of research on early childhood coding education: A comprehensive reviewEducation and Information Technologies10.1007/s10639-024-12675-229:16(20795-20822)Online publication date: 24-Apr-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-12675-2
Lin YLiao HWeng SDong W(2024)Comparing the effects of plugged-in and unplugged activities on computational thinking development in young childrenEducation and Information Technologies10.1007/s10639-023-12181-x29:8(9541-9574)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10639-023-12181-x
Mulyati M(2023)Tren dan Pengembangan Keterampilan Berpikir Komputasional Anak Usia Dini pada Abad 21: Perspektif TeoretisJurnal Obsesi : Jurnal Pendidikan Anak Usia Dini10.31004/obsesi.v7i4.40057:4(4155-4165)Online publication date: 14-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.31004/obsesi.v7i4.4005
Friebroon-Yesharim MBen-Bassat Levy RArmoni M(2023)Algorithmic Abstraction in Computer Science Curricula for Primary Schools: The Case of a National Curriculum for 4th GradeProceedings of the 2023 Conference on United Kingdom & Ireland Computing Education Research10.1145/3610969.3611154(1-7)Online publication date: 7-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610969.3611154
Venigalla AChimalakonda SChoppella VPhatak DLuxton-Reilly ACraig M(2023)FlowARP - Using Augmented Reality for Visualizing Control Flows in ProgramsProceedings of the ACM Conference on Global Computing Education Vol 110.1145/3576882.3617922(161-167)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3576882.3617922
Dağ FŞumuer EDurdu L(2023)The effect of an unplugged coding course on primary school students' improvement in their computational thinking skillsJournal of Computer Assisted Learning10.1111/jcal.1285039:6(1902-1918)Online publication date: 17-Jul-2023
https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12850
Li WYang W(2023)Promoting children's computational thinking: A quasi‐experimental study of web‐mediated parent educationJournal of Computer Assisted Learning10.1111/jcal.1281839:5(1564-1575)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://doi.org/10.1111/jcal.12818
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents