Challenging but Full of Opportunities: Teachers' Perspectives on Programming in Primary Schools

TL;DR

This paper explores primary school teachers' perspectives on teaching programming, highlighting challenges, opportunities, and the need for improved teacher training to effectively incorporate computational thinking into curricula.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into teachers' experiences and expectations, informing curriculum revisions for better preparation of primary teachers in programming education.

Findings

Teachers face specific challenges in teaching programming at primary level.

Opportunities include fostering computational thinking and problem-solving skills.

Disagreements between teachers' experiences and training highlight curriculum gaps.

Abstract

The widespread establishment of computational thinking in school curricula requires teachers to introduce children to programming already at primary school level. As this is a recent development, primary school teachers may neither be adequately prepared for how to best teach programming, nor may they be fully aware why they have to do so. In order to gain a better understanding of these questions, we contrast insights taken from practical experiences with the anticipations of teachers in training. By surveying 200 teachers who have taught programming at primary schools and 97 teachers in training, we identify relevant challenges when teaching programming, opportunities that arise when children learn programming, and strategies how to address both of these in practice. While many challenges and opportunities are correctly anticipated, we find several disagreements that can inform revisions of the curricula in teaching studies to better prepare primary school teachers for teaching programming at primary schools.