Frame Shifting as a Challenge to Integrating Computational Thinking in Secondary Mathematics Education
Year: 2021
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: In this study, we adapted the notion of framing, a theoretical construct that refers to a person’s expectations about social spaces (Goffman, 1974), to investigate whether teachers viewed computational thinking (CT) according to subject-specific frames. This case study aimed to understand how teachers make connections between CT and subjects targeted for integration. Epistemological framing contributed new insights on why teachers connected CT in different ways to different subjects: frame shifting focused teachers’ attention on goals and activities specific to each subject. As teachers attended to a subject’s particularities, they drew upon different epistemic resources to construct their descriptions of CT. Our participants (n=6) were teachers who taught 7th-12th grade computing and mathematics as individual subjects. Qualitative coding of interview transcripts revealed that teachers' ideas about CT in computing were strongly influenced by computer programming while their ideas about CT in mathematics corresponded with familiar ways of teaching and learning mathematics. However, rather than accepting the fragmentation of CT as the price of integration into individual subjects, we propose limiting the scope when defining CT. We explain how this non-intuitive strategy can preserve the coherence of CT and how it might be used in CT professional development (PD) for mathematics teachers.
Authors: Wendy Huang, Shiau Wei Chan, Chee Kit Looi
Language: English
Subfield: Computer Science Applications
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3133530364