The Effects of Providing Starter Projects in Open-ended Scratch Activities
In this episode I unpack Coenraad et al.’s (2021) publication titled “The effects of providing starter projects in open-ended Scratch activities,” which compares two groups of students to determine the impact of Scratch starter projects on student creativity.
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Welcome back to another episode of CSK8 podcast.
My name is Jared O'Leary.
Each podcast is either an interview with a guest
or multiple guests or a solo episode, right?
Unpacked some scholarship.
Now, normally
I've been alternating between a unpacking scholarship episode and interviews.
However, my schedule and the schedule of the guests
that I've contacted have been pretty busy over the summer.
So while I've got several interviews
lined up over the next couple of months, I don't have an interview to share today.
So instead, I'm going to do a solo episode that unpacks the paper
titled Effects of Providing starter projects in open ended scratch Activities.
This particular paper was written by Marika Konrad, Jen Palmer, David
Weintraub, Dana Edgar, Zachary Crenshaw, and Sam and Diana Franklin.
Apologies if I mispronounce any names.
I do actually look up name pronunciations, by the way,
so sorry if I still pronounce it wrong.
All right, so here's the abstract for this paper.
What?
Given the importance of broadening participation in the field of computing
goals, of supporting personal expression and developing a sense of belonging
must live alongside the goals of conceptual knowledge and developing
disciplinary expertise, integrating opportunities for students to be creative
and how they enact computing ideas plays an important role in designing curricula.
We examine how student creativity, as expressed through theme
and the use of costumes, backdrops and narrative in sketch projects
is effective by using a theme starter project started projects are scratch
projects that include a set of sprites and backdrops aligned to a theme.
Example baseball, but no code using within group and between group comparisons.
We establish a baseline of what students do when they are given a starter project
and explore how their projects differ in the absence of a starter project.
This work contributes to our understanding
of the impacts of structured elements within open ended learning tasks
and how we can design computer science learning experiences for students
that promote opportunities
for self-expression while engaging them in computing, unquote.
All right.
So to summarize this particular paper into a single sentence,
I'd say that it's a study that compares two groups of students
to determine the impact of such starter projects on student creativity.
All right.
So this particular paper is guided by the question, quote,
How does the use of theme
start or project affect student creativity when offering a computer program?
End quote, from page 38.
So if that particular question and this paper sounds interesting to you,
I do recommend taking a look at the paper itself.
I include a link to it in the show notes as well as links to the author
Google Scholar profiles.
So you can check out more publications by the authors.
You can find the show notes at Gerard O'Leary dot com,
which has hundreds if not thousands of free resources for educators
including link to put up the org, which is the nonprofit that I work
for, where I create
Check it out if you're interested in learning more about Scratch in Scratch
Junior through interest driven projects that you can do in your class.
All right.
So in the theory and prior work discussion, the authors mentioned
that this is the curriculum
Scratch Encore, which I've done another podcast episode
on, and you can check that out in the show notes.
And this particular curriculum is centered around the use,
modify, Create framework, which I also do another podcast episode On that.
I'll include a link to to the options, describe some other curricula,
and then compare that with the scratch on core curriculum,
if interested in that comparison, check that out on page 39
and then on page 42, describe the participants and the context.
So there is two groups within this particular study.
So 165th through eighth grade students.
So from ages 10 to 14 and in the first group,
which had 78 students, it was three class sections taught by and same teacher.
And this was grades six, seven and eight.
So in Group A, they used a themed starter project
for the first project, but not in the second project on Conditional Loops.
However, Group B, which was 82 students from fifth through seventh grade,
used a themed starter project for both of the projects that we're about to explore.
So to analyze the projects for this particular study,
the authors analyzed some scratch projects and then they engaged in interactive
reliability to kind of determine whether or not all of the authors
basically agreed and would have coded things or rated things a particular way,
and they scored high.
So if you want to nerd out and check out those numbers, check it out on page 40.
All right. So let's talk about the different findings.
So there are eight different findings that I'm going to briefly unpack.
I recommend taking a look at this by looking at the actual paper,
because I won't include everything in this particular podcast episode.
All right.
So this is between group comparison for the first project
where both of the groups were using a theme starter project.
Right?
So finding one, this is page
use similar numbers of backdrops and animated a similar number of sprites
but showed and program different number of sprites in quotes.
So most students tended to use one backdrop.
Most of the students had a similar number of animated sprites.
So sprites who were moving in some way either using a loop or continued
animation.
I saw finding two for the between group results is quote
projects across groups maintained the dance theme of this starter project.
But in both groups,
students incorporated additional youth, cultural and nonsensical elements.
Interestingly, even though both of these groups
at this point in this particular project were using the same theme starter project,
culture in their project.
That's how the authors are describing it.
But in Group B, only 7.2,
had some kind of youth culture within their project.
So an example might be like a meme.
So that's interesting because they were working off of the same theme project
as they started project.
Now finding three students in group, a used narrative
significantly more than students and Group B, and it's from Page 40.
So even though they both had these same themes, start a project group
a used nearly twice as many say blocks compared to Group B, and these say blocks
are like the things where you can like give directions and make us like a sprite.
Looks like they're talking
either to the user or to other Sprite or maybe even to themselves.
Right?
And then the last finding for this between group analysis of the first project
where they were both working on a theme start, a project is quote,
Students in both groups found ways to individualize projects
within the Starter Project theme, end quote.
Now, interestingly, Group B was nearly twice as likely to add
new costumes from the scratch library than Group A.
Now, this is of particular interest because Group A ends
up being more creative, according to the authors
on the second project when they didn't have to use the starter thing.
Speaking of so the next set of findings is comparing
the two groups on the second project, where Group B is the group
that had the themed starter project and Group A did not have to use that.
So here's finding five from page 41.
Quote Student projects created without starter projects
differed esthetically and thematically from those who starter projects.
But you see us concepts in similar ways, end quote.
So the total number of sprites that use conditionals
within these projects, which that was the point of the projects for this one.
So like if else blocks
the number of sprites was basically the same across both groups.
However, within group A only 44.87% of the students
use the theme of the starter project, whereas in Group B that use the themed
starter project 92.8, 6% of them stuck with that particular theme.
So in other words, students who didn't have that starter project
were more likely to create their own theme while also using conditionals.
And that group was more than three times as likely to reference
youth culture in the projects.
So for example, Group A had 38.4.
referenced some kind of youth culture
like a mean, whereas Group B only had 11.9% in the second project,
they were also more likely to include nonsensical elements.
So an example that they gave is a giraffe that's talking to Apple Airpod
headphones.
There are also large differences in each group
on whether or not they would use the provided costume.
So for example, Group B that had the theme starter project,
stuck with the original costume,
whereas only 12.82% of the group eight
students stuck with the costumes in the original project.
That's a huge difference.
In addition, Group eight tended to deviate from the original themes.
So an example they gave is a scene depicts a hair and skeleton and in kung
Fu battle, narrated by an apple, end quote, as opposed to Group B,
which tended to focus on a train or a bus arriving late,
which was the original theme in the Starter Project.
So in other words, students who were engaging in projects
that had a theme starter project were more likely to have projects
that were similar or focus on the starter theme, whereas students who were given
an open ended prompt without a theme starter project incorporated the main
concept of conditionals enter the project at the same rate as their peers.
However, there is more diversity in terms of the end result of the projects.
Now finding six is that quote Starting without a theme starter
project gave students the flexibility to choose a theme and incorporate youth
culture and nonsense within their projects.
In quote from page 42, here's another quote from the same page
quote Twice as many projects
reference youth culture when a starter project was not used, end quote.
So kids were twice as likely
to express themselves in different ways if they did not use a starter project.
That's fascinating
finding seven
is that quote, Students created variation within projects by selecting
and uploading specific sprites and backdrops in quotes from page 42,
which makes sense, and also from page 42, Finding eight is what students
use narrative, which grew more varied when they did not use theme starter
projects to express themselves within projects and quote.
All right, so the kind of summarize everything.
Here's a quote for page 43.
But these findings point toward theme starter projects
as being unnecessary in supporting students to finish open ended projects
while potentially beneficial for students who need support getting started and
helpful in streamlining the amount of time students take to create their projects,
these theme starter projects appear to have limited or
no effect on integration of computing concepts in students work.
Conversely, theme starter projects affect student creativity and the rate
at which students
incorporate uploaded assets and self generated themes in their projects.
Thus, see US educators, researchers and curriculum developers
should carefully consider whether to include beam starter projects
based on the potential benefits
to and needs of their specific student populations, end quote.
So because it did not appear to impact whether or not students actually
integrated these concepts into their final projects, yeah,
we really should consider whether or not
this is something that we should include or require of students.
But that being said,
I want to talk about some lingering questions
or thoughts that I have after reading this article.
So one of them is how does either
approach impact cognitive load for novice scratchers or coders?
So in particular, if you're engaging
in a more advanced project, does it help to have a starter theme
or does it help going one step further to have a starter project
where it's like partially completed code?
While that might help with cognitive load, another question that I have is
how does either approach impact creativity?
So in particular, how does this relate to studies on creativity within constraints?
So some people like some of the chip musicians in my dissertation mentioned
that they really like the constraints of creating music through chip tunes,
which is basically like creating music through old video game and computer
hardware that wasn't necessarily designed to create music with it.
The first example is like a Gameboy.
Some people really like this constraint, so they have this like idea, this theme
that they wanted to work with,
and they liked the constraints of the hardware in the software
that they were using.
They didn't
want to just be able to use a more modern piece of technology to create music.
So just thinking out loud, some people might love this
approach of having a starter theme and other people might not like it.
I personally probably wouldn't like it, but it depends on the day.
So my last question would be
what kind of balance do you strive for with your projects?
So in this example, as a curriculum developer for Buddha,
I have created a range of projects that have project based learning
that is along a spectrum from like
fixed projects to more flexible projects to more open ended projects.
So an example of a fixed project
might be grade A game with two sprites keeps score one.
Sprite is a player Sprite, the other Sprite is an enemy Sprite.
The other Sprite is an enemy Sprite and it uses conditionals.
The project uses conditionals and it's using a theme of Space invaders.
A more flexible project might be all right.
Use conditionals and variables in some kind of a project that you create.
And then an opening in a project might just be
What kind of project can you create that's interesting to you?
So the resources that I create for boot up have a range
along that particular spectrum.
We also have the opportunity
to look at and remix an example project or a remix project.
Some of those have completed code, some of them have
partially completed code, and then some of them
just have some themes to work off of without any code in them.
Now, having used this approach in my classes and seen it used in
classes across the nation, I can say that each one of these approaches is valuable
in their own different ways, and some kids love one approach
more than another approach on any given day.
So while I really think these findings from this particular study
are very interesting and worth considering,
it's not something that can be generalized across all classes.
We can't say, All right,
we need to just get rid of starter thing projects or partially complete code, etc.
We need to do more follow up studies, which I hope they do, but those are some
of my lingering thoughts and questions related to this particular publication,
which again, you can check out by visiting the show notes at Gerard O'Leary dot
com one request that I've got is if you're interested in being a guest on the show
to talk about see practice or research or anything that's of interest to K-12
and higher
ed CSS educators, please click the contact Me button on my website and let me know.
Thank you so much for listening.
I hope you enjoyed this particular episode and I hope you all stay safe and have
a wonderful week.
Article
Coenraad, M., Palmer, J., Weintrop, D., Eatinger, D., Crenshaw, Z., Pham, H., & Franklin, D. (2021). The effects of providing starter projects in open-ended Scratch activities. SIGCSE 2021 - Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, March, 38–44.
Abstract
“Given the importance of broadening participation in the feld of computing, goals of supporting personal expression and developing a sense of belonging must live alongside the goals of conceptual knowledge and developing disciplinary expertise. Integrating opportunities for students to be creative in how they enact computing ideas plays an important role when designing curricula. We examine how student creativity, as expressed through theme and the use of costumes, backdrops, and narrative in Scratch projects, is affected by using a themed starter project. Starter projects are Scratch projects that include a set of sprites and backdrops aligned to a theme (e.g. baseball), but no code. Using within-group and between-group comparisons, we establish a baseline of what students do when they are given a starter project and explore how their projects differ in the absence of a starter project. This work contributes to our understanding of the impacts of structured elements within open-ended learning tasks and how we can design computer science learning experiences for students that promote opportunities for self-expression while engaging them in computing.”
Author Keywords
Computer science education, K-12, Scratch, scaffolding, creativity
My One Sentence Summary
This paper compares two groups of students to determine the impact of Scratch starter projects on student creativity.
Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts
How does either approach impact cognitive load for novice Scratchers?
How does either approach impact creativity?
In particular, how does this relate to studies on creativity within constraints?
What kind of balance do you strive for with your projects?
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