Scaffolding Young Learners' Open-Ended Programming Projects with Planning Sheets

Abstract

Given the increasing interest and need to teach students computer science in formal education settings, it is imperative to understand how to do so effectively and equitably. An important step of learning to program is being able to define the objective of a program and then plan out how to implement a program to produce the desired outcome. This step is particularly important in younger learners who may have little experience with programming or trying to create their own technological artifacts. In this paper, we explore how to scaffold young programmers in planning their open-ended programs as part of an intermediate Scratch curriculum for middle grade students. We analyze 203 paper and virtual planning documents from 103 5th-8th grade students. Our results reveal that the students often completed a majority of the document, which was consistent across grade levels. However, we found differences in student completion based on teacher and between physical and virtual documents. This work advances our understanding of how to support novice, young programmers in planning programs.