Introducing Coding through Tabletop Board Games and Their Digital Instantiations across Elementary Classrooms and School Libraries

In this episode I unpack Lee et al.'s (2020) experience report titled “Introducing coding through tabletop board games and their digital instantiations across elementary classrooms and school libraries," which investigates the transfer of understanding when students begin learning CS through a tabletop board game and switch to a digital coding environment.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    CSK8 Podcast my name is Jared O'Leary in

    this week's episode I'm going to be

    reading an experience report that's

    going to be presented at 6e later on

    this week

    assuming it doesn't get cancelled

    because of coronavirus but the

    experience report is titled introducing

    coding through tabletop board games and

    their digital instantiations across

    elementary classrooms and school

    libraries now this paper was written by

    Victor Arlie Frederick pool Jody Clarke

    Madeira Mimi wrecker and Melissa

    Rasmussen apologies if I mispronounced

    anybody's names this paper can be found

    at least the link to it can be found in

    the show notes which you can click in

    the description in your app that you're

    listening to this on or by visiting

    Ghirardelli recom and clicking on the

    show notes for this particular episode

    now if you click on the title that it's

    in the show notes it will take you to

    the paper itself which I believe all ACM

    members can download in addition if you

    click on any of the author's last names

    in the link at the top of my website it

    will take you to their google scholar

    profile so you can read more papers by

    them alright so now I'm going to read

    for you the abstract for this paper

    quote this experience report describes

    an approach for helping Elementary

    School's integrate computational

    thinking and coding by leveraging

    existing resources and infrastructure

    that do not rely on one-to-one computing

    a particular focus is using the school

    library a media center as a site to

    complement and enhance classroom

    instruction on coding further our

    approach builds on unplugged knowledge

    and practices that are already familiar

    to and motivating for students in this

    case tabletop board games through these

    games students can use their prior

    knowledge and ease with tabletop gaming

    mechanics to cue relevant ideas for core

    computational concepts we describe a

    model and instructional unit spanning

    across classroom and school library

    settings that builds upon board gameplay

    as a source domain for computing

    knowledge building on expansive framing

    the model emphasizes instructional

    linkages being made between one domain

    the tabletop board game and another

    specifically designed scratch project

    shells with partially complete code

    blocks such that the reasoning

    activities and different contexts as

    seen as instantiations of the same

    encompassing context we present the

    experiences of three elementary school

    teachers as they implemented the unit in

    their classroom

    and with the school librarian we also

    show initial findings on the impact of

    the unit of student interest in of 87 as

    measured by pre and post surveys we

    conclude with lessons learned about ways

    to improve the unit and future classroom

    implementations in quote so far to

    summarize this into a single sentence I

    would say that this experience report

    investigates the transfer of

    understandings when students begin

    learning computer science through a

    tabletop board game and switched to a

    digital coding environment alright so in

    the introduction the authors point out

    that while elementary schools across the

    nation are being asked to incorporate

    computer science into the classroom many

    teachers and administrators are unsure

    where to start when sifting through the

    many resources out there or honestly

    even where to start looking or how to

    assess the quality of the resources that

    are out there I'm sure as educators who

    are listening to this you can all attest

    to the many number of ads you've

    received for what's supposed to be the

    award-winning best platform ever but

    really it's kind of hard to rate the

    quality of it just based on

    advertisements alone so here's a quote

    from page 788 quote to address these

    issues we have been working with local

    schools to find ways to integrate

    computational thinking and coding using

    existing resources and infrastructure

    and that do not rely on one to one

    computer to student ratios and quote

    even though many schools are turning

    towards one-to-one devices this is a

    very important for schools I cannot

    afford it or for schools who are looking

    for alternatives outside of just using

    screens the entire time while engaging

    in computer science the author's point

    out in the paper itself that they are

    leveraging school libraries and media

    centers because they are increasingly

    becoming spaces for maker activities

    which I've discussed in previous

    unpacking scholarship episodes and they

    believe that the time spent in the

    library can be spent engaging with code

    so for example through organizations

    like libraries ready to code librarians

    and media specialists have access to

    computer science and computational

    thinking resources which if you just

    search for that phrase or go to the show

    notes I have a direct link to those

    resources in addition the author's

    indicates they chose libraries as a

    space for this particular study because

    of their quote ability to serve as a

    locus for interest development and

    maintenance in quote

    on page 789 and the authors also note

    that they previously studied playing

    board games in the library so they

    wanted to see whether they could

    leverage quote board gameplay as a

    source domain for computing knowledge

    and quote age 788 now personally I find

    the whole premise of this super nerdy

    and super enjoyable I thoroughly approve

    of multi perspectival approaches and if

    kids are more familiar with playing

    tabletop games then cool why not

    incorporate that in the classroom in

    some way that is meaningful to them and

    just so happens to also teach them some

    cool things that they can use in other

    subject areas like computer science or

    wherever now in the review of literature

    the authors point out that unplugged

    activities are often used to reinforce

    or teach computer science and

    computational thinking understandings

    however emerging research actually

    suggests that tabletop gaming can also

    teach the CS and CT which is pretty

    interesting and honestly not really

    talked about all that much in computer

    science scholarship that I've read so

    here's a quote from page 788 quote

    tabletop board games can be well suited

    for learning computational thinking

    because they have defined rules and

    structures that players must enact in a

    sense learners execute a program in

    order to complete the game at the same

    time players engage in extensive

    sense-making conversations to understand

    what and how procedures and rules are to

    be followed how to optimize strategy and

    how to monitor each other's actions in

    quote now in the paper itself the

    authors mentioned multiple tabletop

    games like coding farmers potato pirates

    and robot turtles and they indicate too

    that all of these can teach computer

    science concepts which I have again

    linked in the show notes however there

    is very little research to actually back

    up some of the claims that some of these

    companies make in terms of whether or

    not kids actually do learn computer

    science concepts when engaging in these

    board games so to study this the authors

    first began with the tabletop games and

    then use angles model expansive framing

    to determine whether computational

    thinking concepts actually transferred

    from the tabletop environment into

    digital and of coding environments like

    scratch now this is very important

    because as CS educators who were again

    bombarded by

    tons of supposedly award-winning

    computer science platforms that will

    supposedly teach you absolutely

    everything you need to know about

    anything related to computer science we

    need to be able to sift through the

    jargon the marketing jargon in

    particular and actually get down to

    whether or not kids actually learn when

    engaging in those environments or if

    they're simply just having fun doing

    something that's tangentially of related

    to computer science or computational

    thinking so this particular study took

    place over eight weeks in a unit that

    went from computer science board games

    into scratch shells of those same games

    so they typically spent about two weeks

    playing a CS board game then three weeks

    making edits to the scratch version of

    the same board game then two weeks

    designing new levels for the board game

    and then finally a week sharing what

    they created with their teachers and

    peers in addition the classroom teachers

    also taught six preparatory lessons and

    their classrooms which prepared kids for

    the engagement in the library so they'd

    kind of introduce some of the things

    that they'd be doing and then they'd

    actually do it in the library itself now

    the game that they used was called code

    on the brink which is linked in the show

    notes and by the way there are two

    slashes at the start of the word code

    which means comment you can see that in

    the show notes and in the paper itself

    and this particular game has 40

    challenges where kids essentially have

    to sing quits together cards with

    directions that program a robot to

    navigate a level in the board game in

    terms of participants there were three

    fifth grade teachers in Utah who

    participated which resulted in 87 kids

    participating in the study itself now to

    collect data the authors use two video

    cameras that recorded the sessions as

    well as a pre and post survey with 32

    like art items related to interest in

    computer science which was given to all

    of the students who participated let's

    talk about the actual findings of this

    particular study so interestingly B

    classroom with a teacher that had the

    most experience with block based

    programming also quote reported a

    significant decrease in their intrinsic

    interest in computing end quote that's

    page 792 791 so again a decrease in

    their actual interest in wanting to

    learn computer science in fact their

    mean score was actually a full point

    lower within a range from one to six

    however one of the other classes

    a state about the same and the third

    class showed a significant increase in

    overall interest in other words they had

    mixed findings for implementation in the

    classroom now the authors also found

    that kids who took the boardgame home

    indicated higher intrinsic interest in

    the post survey than kids who didn't

    however the authors later point out that

    there was a sudden drop-off in interest

    for taking home the boardgame after a

    relatively short amount of time

    interestingly in the preparation section

    the author's recommended that the

    teachers have a discussion about what

    kids were going to do in those

    preparatory lessons however they found

    that teachers spent a lot more time

    talking or lecturing during that section

    than they did actually engaging in

    discussion so the author's quote posit

    that it was through teacher talk that

    variation in implementation was largely

    realized and thus was a contributor to

    the difference in student post survey

    results between classes end quote

    that's on page 791 in other words they

    think the reason why kids show different

    interests is because of the amount of

    time that each teacher spent during the

    preparation period lecturing at the

    students or talking to them the reason

    why they posit this is because the

    students appeared more engaged in the

    lessons when there was less direct

    instruction this is from their video

    observations in addition they note that

    the students who scored lower in the

    post survey were introduced to more

    abstract connections such as like

    programming a calculator than some of

    the more playful examples that the other

    teachers demonstrated such as like

    programming a toy robot so in other

    words the officer suggesting that we

    need to make things more relevant to the

    kids and connect with their own

    understandings rather than kind of

    talking about computer science in an

    abstract manner or something that makes

    sense to adults rather than for kids now

    one of the interesting things that they

    point out in their findings is that the

    class that had the highest gains also

    had a teacher who narrated not only what

    she was doing but what the students

    would be doing this is something that I

    personally found really valuable when I

    was doing my student teaching my mentor

    teacher actually would narrate out what

    he was doing and why he was doing

    certain things with the classes he was

    working with so that way I could

    understand the thought process he's

    behind what he was doing while teaching

    a class so that really helped me and is

    kind of my way of saying I agree this

    could probably really help kids if you

    kind of explain your own thought

    processes as you're going through them

    in relation to what kid

    are actually going to be doing when they

    engage with coding in the library now in

    the discussion section at the end of

    this relatively short paper the author's

    mentioned that they want to start

    scratch sooner during their next

    iteration because there's too much time

    between playing the board game and

    coding and scratch

    I found this point to be particularly

    interesting because it's basically

    saying they're trying to still figure

    out the balance between how much time

    should be spent doing something

    unplugged before you actually apply

    those concepts and understandings into a

    plugged version of that educational

    experience another one of the things the

    authors mentioned is that the game

    circulated a lot during the start of the

    unit but then the students quickly lost

    interest in taking it home now I found

    this with other devices that did not

    have opportunities for increasing

    complexity or creative outlets so for

    example kids who use the makey makey in

    my classes were like super excited about

    it at the beginning but then after a

    couple weeks they're like I just

    honestly want to create something in

    scratch it takes too much time to set

    this thing up and it's not as

    interesting as what I can do in the

    digital environment now that's not a

    knock on makey makey itself it's a

    really interesting product that can be

    used however I just personally found

    that kids eventually lost interest in it

    after a couple of weeks despite an

    initial huge surge of interest in

    wanting to use one of the ten available

    devices that I had in my classroom all

    right so I have some lingering questions

    so one of them is how my interest in

    computer science compared with the

    following treatment groups one example

    playing the board games only second

    example would be playing the board games

    and moving into scratch and in the third

    example we'll be using scratch only so

    if we have those three different

    treatment types how would each of them

    compare so only doing unplugged doing

    the combination of unplugged and plugged

    and then doing plugged only ie scratch

    only also what happens if we reverse the

    order so for example going from scratch

    and then learning the board game after

    the fact are going from plug to unplug

    lessons now personally I prefer to go

    from plug to unplug back into plugged

    because I think it situates the

    understandings and can kind of reinforce

    what's going on so let me unpack that a

    little bit more what I mean by that for

    example if kids are learning about

    conditionals in scratch

    and they've gotten to this point in a

    project where they need to know how to

    do this thing and they start engaging

    with using the if-else blocks we can

    then do an unplugged that reinforces

    that understanding and provides a

    different way of looking at it such as

    like red light green light something

    like that where if I show a red light

    then you're going to stop moving

    otherwise if I show a green light you're

    going to continue moving straight

    forward after they go through that

    unplugged experience then they go back

    into the platform where they needed to

    know that information and we're trying

    to apply it and then they're able to

    contextualize that information a little

    bit better hopefully by having another

    perspective on what the if-else blocks

    are so again in other words going from

    plugged having a need to know something

    to unplugged where they explore it in an

    offline manner in some way that's

    engaging and interesting to them and

    then going back into that need-to-know

    moment and applying their understandings

    in there so this is a bit different than

    what is typically talked about where you

    start with unplugged and then you go

    into plugged or vice-versa now another

    question that I had is is the purpose of

    this study to analyze the intended

    impact of the unit itself how the unit

    was taught or how students embodied the

    unit so this gets into something that

    curricular scholars like Elliot Eisner

    and William H Schubert discuss so for

    example there is a concept of the

    intended curriculum the intended

    curriculum is what to the curriculum

    designers created or in this case the

    game developers created and is the thing

    that we want everyone to walk away and

    no one understand and we intend for this

    to happen when we tend for these

    understandings to occur and everyone's

    gonna become the best computer

    scientists in the world as a result of

    this curriculum that's the intended part

    now the TOC curriculum is what is

    actually taught by the teachers in the

    classroom or through the experience

    itself so this goes hand-in-hand with

    the intended curriculum but as the

    authors note what is intended often

    differs in terms of how it was taught so

    the authors wanted more of a discussion

    that was supposed to go with the

    preparatory lessons but they noted that

    some of the teachers spent significantly

    more time than they wanted of doing the

    preparatory lessons as lectures so that

    again intended was different than what

    is taught now the next layer down would

    be the experience curriculum so this is

    what kids actually experience in the

    curriculum itself so what they're

    actually going

    in the class mrs. Canby and often is

    different than what is taught because

    what a student experiences is kind of

    dependent on many other factors now in

    addition to what its students

    experienced through the curriculum

    there's also the embodied curriculum

    these are the meanings that are derived

    from the experience curriculum itself so

    for example if the student experiences

    ACS as unplugged lessons alone they

    might embody the notion that computer

    science doesn't involve working on a

    computer so let me kind of unpack those

    four so far so we have intended

    curriculum this is what like the

    curriculum or game developer intends to

    be learned or taught from the curriculum

    itself

    however that is often different than

    what is taught by the actual teacher

    they might add their own spin on it or

    change some things or forget something

    or teach it in a way that is different

    than what is intended

    now this then impacts the experience

    curriculum which is what the students

    actually engage in in the classroom

    which is sometimes different than the

    embodied curriculum which of the

    takeaways the things that they learn and

    walk away from so even though it's

    something was intended the way it was

    taught influences the way it was

    experienced which influences what is

    actually embodied all four of those

    things are completely different layers

    of curriculum development that we have

    to take in consideration when studying

    curricula in a classroom setting

    now there's also other layers so for

    example there's a hidden or implicit

    curriculum now the hidden in our

    implicit curriculum is the curriculum

    that takes place beyond what is over at

    least stated so for example classroom

    and school norms are forms of hidden or

    implicit curriculum an example that a

    lot of people talk about is norms in

    terms of raising hands and how quiet or

    loud a classroom or a quote learning

    environment is supposed to be versus an

    informal learning environment such as

    the playground or whether or not

    students are walking in groups or

    walking in a straight line when going

    from one place of the school to the

    other these are all forms of hidden or

    implicit curriculum now another thing

    that we also have to think about when

    doing this kind of stuff is the tested

    curriculum so this is what typically

    dictates what is perceived as important

    to know so if it's on the test that is

    something that a student is going to

    likely view as okay I need to know the

    saying I need to do well on it and the

    other stuff does not on the test I'm

    going to ignore so if computer science

    is a tested curriculum then the things

    that are

    test it on there such as conditionals

    like if else if that's on the test

    that's deemed is important but a

    variables is not on the test well that's

    not as important and one more that I'll

    mention in terms of different ways to

    look at to the curriculum is the null

    curriculum so that is what is left out

    so no school or curriculum is ever able

    to teach everything so what students

    don't have the opportunity to learn in

    schools is referred to as a null

    curriculum the reason why I'm bringing

    up the intended top experienced embodied

    hidden or implicit tested and null

    curriculum is because these are all

    different ways that we could analyze

    different layers of curriculum itself in

    this case a board game that is then

    transferring hopefully transferring

    knowledge into a digital environment now

    I'll get off my soapbox you can tell

    probably that I'm a bit of a curriculum

    nerd and I really like to think through

    all these different layers of things

    when it comes to designing and

    researching curricula in general I

    really like the overall idea behind this

    experience reports like the idea of

    engaging in a tabletop board game and

    then researching the transfer of

    understandings into a digital

    environment however I feel like the

    paper itself could probably benefit from

    an inclusion of scholarship on curricula

    just to help clarify which layers we are

    actually analyzing within the report

    itself because I feel like follow-up

    publications on this particular topic

    could result in several different foci

    that being said I really hope that the

    authors do follow up studies where they

    look at different variations that I had

    previously mentioned and others that

    were unmentioned as well as the

    different layers that could be unpacked

    in relation to curriculum design

    curriculum implementation and how

    curriculum is experienced or embodied by

    kids I hope you enjoyed this episode

    again all of the resources that I

    mentioned in terms of the different

    board games and platforms and things

    like that are listed in the show notes

    which you can find in the description

    and I hope you consider sharing this

    podcast with somebody else who might

    find this beneficial before I close I

    want to give a quick shout out to Karen

    who is a coworker at the boot-up who is

    helping me now with editing podcasts so

    the episode that's gonna come out next

    week

    that's an interview Karen helped edit

    that and it saved me a ton of time so I

    could focus creating some other content

    that will be released on our website so

    thank you Karen I really appreciate the

    efforts you've made it has made my life

    a lot easier and lastly I want to thank

    everybody who is listening to this thank

    you so much I hope you all

    a wonderful week and if you are in sixty

    this week I will be there as long as

    it's not canceled so hit me up and we

    can talk shop and maybe unpack some more

    layers of curriculum

Article

Lee, V. R., Poole, F., Clarke-Midura, J., Recker, M., & Rasmussen, M. (2020). Introducing Coding through Tabletop Board Games and Their Digital Instantiations across Elementary Classrooms and School Libraries. In Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 787–793. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366917


Abstract

“This experience report describes an approach for helping elementary schools integrate computational thinking and coding by leveraging existing resources and infrastructure that do not rely on 1-1 computing. A particular focus is using the school library and media center as a site to complement and enhance classroom instruction on coding. Further, our approach builds upon “unplugged” knowledge and practices that are already familiar to and motivating for students, in this case tabletop board games. Through these games, students can use their prior knowledge and ease with tabletop gaming mechanics to cue relevant ideas for core computational concepts. We describe a model and an instructional unit spanning across classroom and school library settings that builds upon board game play as a source domain for computing knowledge. Building on expansive framing, the model emphasizes instructional linkages being made between one domain (the tabletop board game) and another (specially designed Scratch project shells with partially complete code blocks) such that the reasoning activities and different contexts are seen as instantiations of the same encompassing context. We present the experiences of three elementary school teachers as they implemented the unit in their classrooms and with their school librarian. We also show initial findings on the impact of the unit on student interest (N=87), as measured by pre- and post- surveys. We conclude with lessons learned about ways to improve the unit and future classroom implementations.”


Author Keywords

Elementary school coding, CS unplugged, computational thinking, expansive framing


My One Sentence Summary

This experience report investigates the transfer of understanding when students begin learning CS through a tabletop board game and switch to a digital coding environment.


Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • How might interest in CS compare with the following treatment groups: a) playing the board games only, b) playing the board game and moving into Scratch, and C) using Scratch only?

    • What about different unit that reverses it so kids start with Scratch and then learn the board game (i.e., plugged-to-unplugged)?

  • Is the purpose of the study to analyze the intended impact of the unit itself, how the unit was taught, or how students embodied the unit?


Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode



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