Despite growing calls to foster AI literacy, there are few available survey instruments designed for children and youth that study computational empowerment alongside construction and deconstruction activities. In such activities, learners’ beliefs about their abilities and attributes can impact their engagement. In this paper, we introduce and validate a survey instrument with constructs related to construction (creative expression and problem-solving self-beliefs) and deconstruction (auditing self-efficacy and fascination with auditing), along with more general self-beliefs related to design justice and the value of learning about AI/ML. We administered the instrument to 124 teenagers and assessed the six-factor structure of the instrument using confirmatory factor analysis. In addition to confirming the structure, we found that design justice beliefs strongly correlated with problem-solving, auditing self-efficacy, and creative expression.

Research on children and youth's participation in different roles in the design of technologies is one of the core contributions in child-computer interaction studies.Building on this work, we situate youth as advisors to a group of high school computer science teacher-and researcher-designers creating learning activities in the context of emerging technologies.Specifically, we explore algorithm auditing as a potential entry point for youth and adults to critically evaluate generative AI algorithmic systems, with the goal of designing classroom lessons.Through a two-hour session where three teenagers (16-18 years) served as advisors, we (1) examine the types of expertise the teens shared and (2) identify back stage design elements that fostered their agency and voice in this advisory role.Our discussion considers opportunities and challenges in situating youth as advisors, providing recommendations for actions that researchers, facilitators, and teachers can take to make this unusual arrangement feasible and productive.

Even as efforts to promote K-12 CS education forge ahead, there is a growing consensus that students must also be taught artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in order to be prepared for the fast-changing world powered by AI/ML. How can ensure that we leverage learnings from two decades of CS education research and practice, and build on successes while mitigating missteps? This panel invites researchers with deep expertise in 'CSForAll' efforts for a timely discussion and sharing of valuable lessons from CS education efforts about pedagogies, attention to equity, and teacher preparation that will also benefit K-12 AI education.

Debugging physical computing projects provides a rich context to understand cross-disciplinary problem solving that integrates multiple domains of computing and engineering. Yet understanding and assessing students' learning of debugging remains a challenge, particularly in understudied areas such as physical computing, since finding and fixing hardware and software bugs is a deeply contextual practice. In this paper we draw on the rich history of clinical interviews to develop and pilot "failure artifact scenarios" in order to study changes in students' approaches to debugging and troubleshooting electronic textiles (e-textiles). We applied this clinical interview protocol before and after an eight-week-long e-textiles unit. We analyzed pre/post clinical interviews from 18 students at four different schools. The analysis revealed that students improved in identifying bugs with greater specificity, and across domains, and in considering multiple causes for bugs. We discuss implications for developing tools to assess students' debugging abilities through contextualized debugging scenarios in physical computing.

In K-12 education, nearly all efforts focused on expanding computer science education center on the induction of new computer science teachers, with very little attention given to support the ongoing needs of experienced computer science teachers. More seasoned teachers benefit from deepening their content knowledge, pedagogical practices, and knowledge and capacity to provide equitable and inclusive learning experiences that results in students feeling a sense of belonging in computer science. This panel will discuss the needs of experienced CS teachers from a variety of perspectives, including teacher education researchers, professional development leaders, and high school practitioners and teacher facilitators. The panel will collectively outline a research and practice agenda that focuses on supporting, retaining, and further developing experienced teachers through expanded professional development, leadership opportunities, and community for CS teachers.

In this paper, we share the design of a virtual epidemic with recognizable similarities to the real-life COVID-19 pandemic in order to engage children and youth in seeking information about the outbreak and practicing usage of personal protection equipment. In our research we sought to create a safe space in the virtual world, Whyville, for youth to “play” with serious topics of infection, asymptomatic disease transmission, prevention measures, and research and reporting of public health information. We examined the logfiles of 1,022 youth aged 10-18 years (mean = 13.7 years) who participated in an outbreak of a virtual virus, SPIKEY-20, in October and November 2020. Analyzing log files, we found that player engagement in productive infectious disease practices increased, including information seeking as well as purchases and usage of personal protective equipment during the virtual epidemic. In the discussion, we address the potential for virtual epidemics to provide a safe, playful space to practice and learn how to productively confront infectious disease and build promising connections between virtual and real-life epidemics.

As computer science is moving into K-12 education, most efforts have focused on getting new teachers into computer science or integrating computing within STEM topics. But one aspect that has received less attention, if any, is the continued professional development of experienced CS teachers. We know little about the particular learning needs of experienced CS teachers, knowledge that will be critical as the CS teaching force expands significantly in coming years. In this panel, we address this knowledge gap from the perspective of teacher education research and professional development-what we need to know about deepening teachers' pedagogical practices and content knowledge-an understanding that will be instrumental for retaining and enriching teachers in CS education.

Computational thinking has become the calling card for re-introducing coding into schools. While much attention has focused on how students engage in designing systems, applications, and other computational artifacts as a measure of success for computational thinking, far fewer efforts have focused on what goes into remediating problems in designing systems and interactions because learners invariably make mistakes that need fixing-or debugging. In this panel, we examine the often overlooked practice of debugging that presents significant learning challenges (and opportunities) to students in completing assignments and instructional challenges to teachers in helping students to succeed in their classrooms. The panel participants will review what we know and don't know about debugging, discuss ways to conceptualize and study debugging, and present instructional approaches for helping teachers and students to engage productively in debugging situations.

Many efforts of curricula design have concentrated on expanding participation in K-12 CS education by introducing innovative approaches but few have focused on addressing longstanding equity issues through their choices of culturally relevant materials and activities. In this paper, we describe our efforts in using electronic textiles which include Arduino-based microcontrollers that are sewn with conductive thread on fabrics to connect actuators and sensors and create interactive wearables. We report on the implementation of an electronic textiles curricular unit in the Exploring Computer Science introductory computing course in 13 high schools involving 272 high school students largely from underrepresented groups in a major metropolitan school district. We examined two issues relevant to broadening equitable participation in CS: (1) students' changed perceptions of computing, and (2) students' depth of learning of computing, circuitry and crafting in the final project. Pre/post surveys on students' perceptions of computing showed positive, significant gains in students' self-confidence in solving CS problems, fascination with computing and ability to be creative with computing. Teacher evaluations of students' final projects revealed robust learning in the areas of basic programming and computational circuitry as well as strong learning across more challenging computational concepts, with room for growth. We discuss factors that impacted student outcomes and outline steps for further analysis.

How can we design for more active participation and engagement in massive online virtual worlds? While many online communities, be they online games or virtual worlds, have been created or used ostensibly with learning goals in mind, relatively little has been studied about how to motivate members collectively (rather than individually or in small groups) in productive activities, especially with children and teens. To this end we describe the design and impact of a virtual epidemic in a massive online community called Whyville.net that engaged youth players in an infectious disease outbreak. Our analyses of click data captured in log files and observations reveal which factors impacted players' changes in participation, including searches for information, engagement in prevention, and donations to vaccine design. In the discussion, we address what we have learned about identity, agency and timing as levers in designing participation in massive community experiences.

In this paper, we report on the study of a new virtual epidemic called the Dragon Swooping Cough, a newly designed virus unleashed on the youth virtual world of Whyville.net in two stages during December 2015 and April 2016. Our overall goal in this study was to design experiential learning of infectious disease in a safe but epidemiologically and educationally sound way. The virtual virus targeted personal, social, and economic aspects of online life in Whyville in order to mirror real-world viruses and to trigger player emotions. Our analysis of pre/post surveys and online behavior log files for survey (N = 747) and non-survey (N = 3348) participants revealed that the virtual epidemic promoted participation, primarily through engagement in prevention against the virtual virus, that increased in the second outbreak. Furthermore, emotional engagement played an intriguing role in both behavioral and information-seeking behaviors. In the discussion we address what we learned about opportunities and challenges in designing a virtual epidemic for educational engagement.

Most research in primary and secondary computing education has focused on understanding learners within formal classroom communities, leaving aside the growing number of promising informal online programming communities where young users contribute, comment, and collaborate on programs to facilitate learning. In this article, we examined trends in computational participation in Scratch, an online community with over 1 million registered youth designers. Drawing on a random sample of 5,004 youth programmers and their activities over 3 months in early 2012, we examined programming concepts used in projects in relation to level of participation, gender, and length of membership of Scratch programmers. Latent class analysis results identified the same four groups of programmers in each month based on the usage of different programming concepts and showed how membership in these groups shifted in different ways across time. Strikingly, the largest group of project creators (named Loops) used the simplest and fewest programming concepts. Further, this group was the most stable in membership and was disproportionately female. In contrast, the more complex programming groups (named Variables, Low Booleans, and High Booleans) showed much movement across time. Further, the Low Booleans and High Booleans groups, the only groups to use “and,” “or,” and “not” statements in their programs, were disproportionately male. In the discussion, we address the challenges of analyzing young learners’ programming in informal online communities and opportunities for designing more equitable computational participation.

Computationally generated data have increasingly been used to provide insights into individual students' learning in constructionist learning environments. However, such studies have either missed examining the influence of local, physical environments, or they have taken students out of the situated scenarios to study them in isolation. In this paper, we explore an expanded methodological approach in order to examine how computationally generated data insights can potentially be informed or expanded with a microgenetic approach. To achieve that, we examine one ten-year-old novice girl's learning of programming in a week-long Scratch camp, applying a microgenetic approach to analysis across multiple forms of data, from traditional observational and artifact documentation to frequent, computationally generated save data. The findings highlight the utility of this approach in identifying Mila's growing engagement with coding, as well as the iterative and social nature of her learning experiences with Scratch.

In this paper we explore how to assess novice youths' learning of programming in an open-ended, project-based learning environment. Our goal is to combine analysis of frequent, automated snapshots of programming (e.g., "big" data) within the "thick" social context of kids? learning for deeper insights into their programming trajectories. This paper focuses on the first stage of this endeavor: the development of exploratory quantitative measures of youths? learning of computer science concepts. Analyses focus on kids? learning in a series of three Scratch Camps where 64 campers aged 10-13 used Scratch 2.0 to make a series of creative projects over 30 hours in five days. In the discussion we consider the highlights of the insights-and blind spots-of each data source with regard to youths' learning.

Millions of kids are visiting and communicating in online sites and communities. While some concerns have been raised unsupervised and potentially harmful communication, a number of studies have identified great potential in kids' online talk, especially when related to feedback on user-generated content. Yet little research has been done at scale to show whether or not positive communication practices are broadly engaged in or supported online. This paper focuses on the informal peer support present in the online Scratch community, a youth programming site. Drawing on a random sample of 8,000 comments from over 5,000 random participants on the Scratch website gathered from January to March 2012, our analysis focuses on the quality of comments about projects and identifies their constructive, emotional and functional foci In the discussion, we address what these findings tell us about productive participation, potential for future research, and opportunities for scaffolding broader and richer participation.

More than twenty years ago, Turkle and Papert wrote about the lack of epistemological pluralism in computing and the resulting exclusivity in the field. Although research on what constitutes a personal epistemology has expanded since then, students continue to hold narrow views of computing that are disconnected from the field at large. To align with current research, we use the term "views" to encompass students' expectations of, attitudes towards, and beliefs about computing. We took a crafts-oriented approach to expanding students' views of computing and broadening participation in computer science by engaging high school students in a 10-week electronic textiles unit. Students were introduced to computational concepts and practices as they designed and programmed electronic artifacts. We found their views shifted from pre- to post-interviews in ways that allowed them to see computing as accessible, transparent, personal, and creative. We discuss how e-textiles materials and the design of classroom activities brought back a diversity of ways thinking about who can do computing, how to do it, and what computing can be.

In this article, we examine the use of electronic textiles (e-textiles) for introducing key computational concepts and practices while broadening perceptions about computing. The starting point of our work was the design and implementation of a curriculum module using the LilyPad Arduino in a pre-AP high school computer science class. To understand students’ learning, we analyzed the structure and functionality of their circuits and program code as well as their design approaches to making and debugging their e-textile creations and their views of computing. We also studied students’ changing perceptions of computing. Our discussion addresses the need for and design of scaffolded challenges and the potential for using crafts materials and activities such as e-textiles for designing introductory courses that can broaden participation in computing.

This study reports on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a service-learning course based on a "cascading mentoring" model linking together the faculty, administration, and undergraduates of an urban university's computer science department with local high school students. We present findings from surveys and post-interviews that illustrate undergraduates' and high school students' experiences in the program and how their perceptions of computing and mentoring changed based upon the outreach. In our discussion, we focus on the institutional and conceptual challenges of implementing the community service course within the university's computer science department, while also highlighting the learning opportunities for streamlining such a model for future iterations.

In this paper, we present and discuss the use of electronic textiles (e-textiles) for introducing key computational concepts and practices and broadening participation and perceptions about computing. The starting point of our work was the design and implementation of a curriculum module using the Lilypad Arduino in a pre-AP high school class. To understand students' learning of concepts, practices, and perceptions of computing, we focused on the structure and functionality of circuits and program code and their design approaches to making and debugging their e-textile creations, and on their views on computing by examining pre-post interviews. Our discussion addresses the challenges and potential of using e-textiles materials and activities for designing introductory courses that can reach a broader student population.

In this paper, we investigate the support of online creative collaborations among young programmers in Scratch. We designed and implemented two online collaboration events, the Collab Challenge and Collab Camp, implemented in January 2011 and in August 2011, respectively, in which members of the Scratch community were invited to work together on programming projects. This paper explores what we learned from iteratively designing and implementing the second event Collab Camp. In our analyses, we reflect on how the changes in context of collaboration (context), the opportunities for finding collaborators (connection), and the engagement of members in constructive feedback (critique) emerged as critical spaces supportive of online collaboration. We discuss how these spaces can serve as guiding principles for online communities that support young designers in creating expressive and personally meaningful projects together.

In this paper we propose a multimodal approach to log file data analysis to develop a better understanding of player participation and practices in virtual worlds. To deal with the massive amounts of data collected via log files researchers traditionally have employed quantitative reduction techniques for revealing trends and patterns. We contend that certain qualitative analysis techniques can reveal particular play practices across online and offline spaces and aspects of individual players' participation invisible through other methods. We present examples from our research in the tween virtual world Whyville.net that illustrate the uses of these new techniques. In the discussion we address the benefits and limitations of our approach.

One challenge in assessing students' engineering and programming designs is that the problems are difficult to evaluate with pencil and paper. Projects with multiple types of designs (circuitry, coding, aesthetics) can go wrong in many ways (Resnick, Berg, & Eisenberg, 2000). Identifying, debugging, and solving these problems is at the crux of being able to design computational and material projects. In this poster we analyze high school students' collaborative engagement with a series of isomorphic deconstruction kits (debuggems) developed to assess their learning of coding, circuit design and creation (through sewing) in e-textiles with the LilyPad Arduino. The debuggem was designed based on our observations of common challenges that students faced when designing their own e-textiles projects during 4-week workshops. We videotaped ten students collaborating in pairs as they worked to turn on LEDs in a project strategically designed with problems in poor crafting, non-functional circuitry design and insufficient coding. Analysis includes what problems students struggled the most to solve and common types of problem solving strategies used. The debuggem was successful in that it revealed common problems, allowed for multiple solutions, and capitalized on collaborative learning. As hoped, all students solved most problems but no group solved every problem in the time allotted without help; student pairs also came up with multiple solutions. The findings indicate that deconstruction kits are not only promising tools for evaluating students' learning of designing with e-textiles but also valuable learning tools, especially when peer collaboration is taken into account.

We examine e-textile designs, a new domain combining crafts, circuitry, and programming with the LilyPad Arduino, to better understand how novice designers develop creative technical solutions. Our analyses draw from observation and interviews conducted with middle and high school students enrolled in e-textiles workshops. In the workshops, students created their own designs by re-interpreting e-textile creations from an online community or by re-purposing the conductive functionality of everyday objects. These remixes, popular in today's youth digital media culture, can also be seen as "interpretative flexibility" and promising indicators of the everyday creativity of novice designers.

Building on Csikszentmihalyi's conception of creativity as a system composed of the domain, the individual, and a field of experts who validate creative innovations, we examine a new domain of e-textiles to describe creativity. Further, we use our interviews with domain experts to outline some of the limitations of current assessment techniques to inform our understanding of creativity.

Much attention has focused on the successes of creative collaboration in online communities yet little is known about how members organize participation and collaboration at such sites. In this paper, we analyze different dimensions of collaborative agency by youth who locally self-organized in groups and participated in a collaborative design challenge in the Scratch online programming community. We report on youths‘ fluid roles in groups, their contributions in terms of feedback, and their awareness of participation in relation to the online community. In the discussion we address what we learned about new forms of collaboration, equity issues, and implications for the design of tasks which better support collective learning.

Online creative production has received considerable attention for its success in creating Wikipedia and Free and Open Source Software yet few youth participate in such voluntary online collaborations, in particular in programming contexts. In this paper, we describe how youth programmers organized collaborative groups or collabs in response to a design challenge in the Scratch Online Community. We report on participation in the “Collab Challenge” in the Scratch community at large and with particular groups, designers’ efforts in recruiting and organizing collab groups, and the role of community feedback. In the discussion, we address what we learned about youth’s informal collaborative skills, fostering community participation, and the design of online communities supportive of creative collaboration, and open issues for further research.