Programming in blocks lets far more people code — but not like software engineers: Response to the Ofsted Report

A May 2022 report from the UK government Research Review Series: Computing makes some strong claims about block-based programming that I think are misleading. The report is summarizing studies from the computing education research literature. Here’s the paragraph that I’m critiquing:

Block-based programming languages can be useful in teaching programming, as they reduce the need to memorise syntax and are easier to use. However, these languages can encourage pupils to develop certain programming habits that are not always helpful. For example, small-scale research from 2011 highlighted 2 habits that ‘are at odds with the accepted practice of computer science’ (footnote). The first is that these languages encourage a bottom-up approach to programming, which focuses on the blocks of the language and not wider algorithm design. The second is that they may lead to a fine-grained approach to programming that does not use accepted programming constructs; for example, pupils avoiding ‘the use of the most important structures: conditional execution and bounded loops’. This is problematic for pupils in the early stages of learning to program, as they may carry these habits across to other programming languages.

I completely agree with the first sentence — there are benefits to using block-based programming in terms of reducing the need to memorize syntax and increasing usability. There is also evidence that secondary school students learn computing better in block-based programming than in text-based programming (see blog post). Blanchard, Gardner-McCune, and Anthony found (a Best Paper awardee from SIGCSE 2020) that university students learned better when they used both blocks and text than when they used blocks alone.

The two critiques of block-based programming in the paragraph are:

• “These languages encourage a bottom-up approach to programming, which focuses on the blocks of the language and not wider algorithm design.”
• “They may lead to a fine-grained approach to programming that does not use accepted programming constructs…conditional execution and bounded loops.”
  

Key Point #1: Block-based programming doesn’t cause either of those critiques. What about programming with blocks rather than text could cause either of these to be true?

I’m programming a lot in Snap! these days for two new introductory computing courses I’m developing at the University of Michigan. I’ve been enjoying the experience. I don’t think that either of these critiques are true about my code or that of the students helping me develop the courses. I regularly do top-down programming where I define high-level custom blocks, as I design my program overall. Not only do I use conditional execution and bounded loops regularly, but Snap allows me to create new kinds of control structures, which has been a terrific help as I create block-based versions of our Teaspoon languages. My experience is only evidence that those two statements need not be true, just because the language is block-based.

I completely believe that the studies being cited in this research report saw and accurately describe exactly these points — that students worked bottom-up and that they rarely used conditioned execution and bounded loops. I’m not questioning the studies. I’m questioning the inference. I don’t believe at all that those are caused by block-based languages.

Key Point #2: Block-Based Programming is Scaffolding, but not Instant Expertise. For those not familiar, here are two education research terms that will be useful in making my argument.

• Scaffolding is the support provided by a learner to enable them to achieve some task or process which they might not be able to achieve without that support. A kid can’t hop a fence by themselves, but they can with a boost — that’s a kind of scaffolding. Block-based programming languages are a kind of scaffolding (and here’s a nice paper from Weintrop and Wilensky describing how it is scaffolding — thanks to Ben Shapiro for pointing it out).
• The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) describes the difference between what a student can do on their own (one edge of the ZPD) and what they might be able to do with the support of a teacher or scaffolding (the far edge of the ZPD). Maybe you can’t code a linked list traversal on your own, but if I give you the pseudocode or give you a lecture on how to do it, then you can. But the far edge of ZPD is unlikely to be that you’re a data structure expert.

Let’s call the task that students were facing in the studies reviewed in the report: “Building a program using good design and with conditioned execution.” If we asked students to achieve this task in a text-based language, we would be asking them to perform the task without scaffolding. Here’s what I would expect:

• Fewer students would complete the task. Not everyone can achieve the goal without scaffolding.
• Those students who do complete the task likely already have a strong background in math or computing. They are probably more likely to use good design and to use conditioned execution. The average performance in the text-based condition would be higher than in the block-based condition — simply because you’ve filtered out everyone who doesn’t have the prior background..

Fewer people succeed. More people drop-out. Pretty common CS Ed result. If you just compare performance text vs. blocks, text looks better. For a full picture, you also have to look at who got left out.

So let’s go back to the actual studies. Why didn’t we see good design in students’ block-based programs? Because the far edge of the ZPD is not necessarily expert practice. Without scaffolding (block-based programming languages), many students are not able to succeed at all. Giving them the scaffolding doesn’t make them experts. The scaffolding can take them as far as the ZPD allows. It may take more learning experiences before we can get to good design and conditioned execution — if that even makes sense.

Key Point #3: Good software engineering practice is the wrong goal. Is “building a program using good design and with conditioned execution” really the task that students were engaging in? Is that what we want student to succeed at? Not everyone who learns to program is going to be a software engineer. (See the work I cite often on “alternative endpoints.”) Using good software engineering practices as the measure of success doesn’t make sense, as Ben Shapiro wrote about these kinds of studies several years ago on Twitter (see his commentary here, shared with his permission). A much more diverse audience of students are using block-based programming than ever used text-based programming. They are going to solve different problems for different purposes in different ways (a point I made in this blog post several years ago). Few US teachers in K-12 are taught how to teach good software engineering practice — that’s simply not their goal (a point that Aman Yadav made to me when discussing this post). We know from many empirical studies that most Scratch programs are telling a story. Why would you need algorithmic design and conditioned execution for that task? They’re not doing complicated coding, but the little bit of coding that they’re using is powerful and is engaging for students — and relatively few students are getting that. I’m far more concerned about the inequitable access to computing education than I am about whether students are becoming good software engineers.

Summary: It’s inaccurate to suggest that block-based programming causes bad programming habits. Block-based programming makes programming far more accessible than it ever has been before. Of course, we’re not going to see expert practice as used in text-based languages for traditional tasks. These are diverse novices using a different kind of notation for novel tasks. Let’s encourage the learning and engagement appropriate for each student.

Blocks and Beyond 2019 and SnapCon19 Call for Papers

#SnapCon19, the first Snap Conference, will be held September 22-25, 2019, in Heidelberg, Germany.  Register by June 24 at this website.

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Blocks and Beyond 2019: Beyond Blocks 

A VL/HCC workshop in Memphis, TN, USA, Fri Oct 18, 2019
http://cs.wellesley.edu/blocks-and-beyond

Scope and Goals

Blocks programming has become increasingly popular in programming environments targeted at beginner programmers, end users, and casual programmers. Capitalizing on the energy and enthusiasm from the first two Blocks and Beyond workshops, we are pleased to announce the 2019 Blocks and Beyond workshop.

Since blocks are only a small step towards leveraging visual languages and notations for specifying and understanding computation, the emphasis of the 2019 workshop is on the Beyond aspect of Blocks & Beyond: what kinds of visual notations and programming environment scaffolding facilitate: Understanding program semantics? Learning computational concepts? Developing computational identity and fostering computational participation and computational action?

The goal of this workshop is to bring together language designers, educators, researchers, and members of the broader VL/HCC community to answer these questions. We seek participants with diverse expertise, including, but not limited to: design of programming environments, instruction with these environments, human factors, the learning sciences, and learning analytics.

This workshop will engage participants to (1) discuss the state of the art of visual languages targeted at beginners, end users, and casual programmers; (2) assess the usability and effectiveness of these languages and their associated pedagogies; and (3) brainstorm about future directions for these languages.

Suggested Topics for Discussion

• In what ways have blocks languages succeeded or failed at fulfilling the promise of visual languages to enhance the ability of humans to express computation?
• How can visual languages and environments better support dynamic semantics and pragmatics, particularly with features for liveness, debugging, and understanding the dynamic execution of programs?
• How usable and effective are visual environments for teaching computational thinking and programming? For democratizing programming and enabling computational participation and computational action? How do we know?
• In what ways does visual programming help or hinder those who use them as a stepping stone to traditional text-based languages? What are good ways to support the transition between visual languages and text-based languages? How important is this?
• How does the two-dimensional nature of visual language workspaces affect the way people create, modify, navigate, and search through their code?
• What tools are there for creating new visual languages, especially domain-specific ones?
• What are effective mechanisms for multiple people to collaborate on a visual programming when they (1) are co-located or (2) are working together remotely?
• What are effective pedagogical strategies to use with visual languages, both in traditional classroom settings and in informal and open-ended learning environments?
• What are the most effective ways to provide help to visual programmers, especially in settings outside the classroom?
• How can visual environments and associated curricular materials be made more accessible to everyone, especially those with visual and motor impairments and underrepresented populations in computing?
• What lessons from the visual programming community are worth sharing with other language designers? Are there features of visual languages that should be incorporated into IDEs for traditional programming environments? What features of modern IDEs are lacking in visual languages?
• How can online communities associated with these environments be leveraged to support users? Are these online communities inclusive and how can they be more inclusive?
• For these environments, what data can be collected, and how can that data be analyzed to determine answers to questions like those above? How can we use such data to answer larger scale questions about early experiences with programming?

Submission

We invite three kinds of paper submissions to spark discussion at the workshop:

• A 2 to 3 page position statement describing an idea, research question, or work in progress related to the design, teaching, or study of visual programming environments.
• A short paper (up to 4 pages, excluding references and/or acknowledgments) describing previously unpublished results involving the design, study, or pedagogy of visual programming.
• A long paper (up to 8 pages, excluding references and/or acknowledgments), with the same goals and content requirements of the short paper, but with a more substantial contribution.

To maximize discussion time at the workshop, paper presentation times will be very short.

All workshop participants (whether or not they have an accepted paper) are encouraged to present a demo and/or poster of their work during the workshop. Anyone wishing to present a demo/poster should submit a 1 to 2 paragraph abstract. There is also an option to submit a 1 to 2 page demo/poster summary document that will appear in the proceedings.

Submission details for papers and demo/poster abstracts and summary documents can be found at the workshop website:  http://cs.wellesley.edu/blocks-and-beyond

As with the first two Blocks and Beyond workshops, we are applying to publish the proceedings of this workshop with the IEEE.

Important Dates

• Fri 12 Jul 2019: Paper submissions due (due by end of day, anytime on Earth)
• Fri 09 Aug 2019: Author notification
• Fri 16 Aug — Fri 20 Sep 2019: Rolling demo/poster abstract submissions
• Fri 16 Aug — Fri 25 Oct 2019: Rolling demo/poster summary document submissions
• Mon 09 Sep 2019: Camera ready paper submissions and copyright forms due
• Fri 13 Sep 2019: Early registration for VL/HCC and B&B ends
• Fri 18 Oct 2019: Workshop in Memphis
• Fri 01 Nov 2019: Camera-ready demo/poster summary documents and copyright forms due

 

High school students learning programming do better with block-based languages, and the impact is greatest for female and minority students

I learned about this study months ago, and I was so glad to see it published in ICLS 2018 this last summer.  The paper is “Blocks or Text? How Programming Language Modality Makes a Difference in Assessing Underrepresented Populations” by David Weintrop, Heather Killen, and Baker Franke.  Here’s the abstract:

Broadening participation in computing is a major goal in contemporary computer science education. The emergence of visual, block-based programming environments such as Scratch and Alice have created a new pathway into computing, bringing creativity and playfulness into introductory computing contexts. Building on these successes, national curricular efforts in the United States are starting to incorporate block-based programming into instructional materials alongside, or in place of, conventional text-based programming. To understand if this decision is helping learners from historically underrepresented populations succeed in computing classes, this paper presents an analysis of over 5,000 students answering questions presented in both block-based and text-based modalities. A comparative analysis shows that while all students perform better when questions are presented in the block-based form, female students and students from historically underrepresented minorities saw the largest improvements. This finding suggests the choice of representation can positively affect groups historically marginalized in computing.

Here’s the key idea as I see it. They studied over 5,000 high school students learning programming. They compared students use block-based and text-based programming questions.  Everyone does better with blocks, but the difference is largest for female students and those from under-represented groups.

Here’s the key graph from the paper:

So, why wouldn’t we start teaching programming with blocks?  There is an issue that students might think that it’s a “toy” and not authentic — Betsy DiSalvo saw that with her Glitch students. But a study with 5K students suggests that the advantages of blocks swamp the issues of inauthenticity.

The International Conference on the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2018 Proceedings are available here.

The General Purpose Blocks Programming Language, GP, is now in beta

GP, the powerful new blocks-based programming language (that I wrote about here, helped show at SIGCSE 2017, and used for MediaComp in a new kind of ebook here), is available for beta-testing as the Scratch 2017 conference starts in Bordeaux, France.  You can access GP at http://www.gpblocks.org.  You can run projects in your browser on the website, or download the application.

GP is a free, general-purpose blocks language that is powerful yet easy to learn.

GP can:

• generate high-quality graphics computationally

• manipulate images and sounds

• analyze text files or CSV data sets

• simulate physical, biological, or economic systems

• access the web and use cloud data

• connect to hardware via the serial port

• deploy projects on the web or as stand-alone apps

Source: About · GP Blocks

Call for Papers for 2nd Blocks and Beyond Workshop

Call for Participation

Blocks and Beyond 2:
2nd Workshop on Lessons and Directions for
First Programming Environments

http://cs.wellesley.edu/blocks–and–beyond

October 9-10, 2017, Raleigh, NC, USA

A satellite workshop of the 2017 IEEE Symposium
on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)

https://sites.google.com/site/vlhcc2017/

Call for Participation

Scope and Goals

Blocks programming environments represent program syntax trees as compositions of visual blocks. They are an increasingly popular way to introduce programming and computational thinking; tens of millions of people have used tools like Scratch, Blockly, App Inventor, Snap!, Pencil Code, Alice/Looking Glass, AgentSheets/AgentCubes, and Code.org’s curricula. But blocks programming is not just for beginners; environments like GP and domain-specific blocks languages are targeted at hobbyists, scientists. and other casual programmers.

Capitalizing on the energy and enthusiasm from the 1st Blocks and Beyond Workshop in Atlanta in 2015, this workshop aims to continue studying the usability, effectiveness, and generalizability of affordances of these environments and their associated pedagogies. The workshop will bring together educators and researchers with experience in blocks languages, as well as members of the broader VL/HCC community who wish to examine this area more deeply. We seek participants with diverse expertise, including, but not limited to: design of programming environments, instruction with these environments, the learning sciences, data analytics, usability, and more.

The workshop will be a generative discussion that sets the stage for future work and collaboration. It will include participant presentations and demonstrations that frame the discussion, followed by reflection on the state of the field and smaller working-group discussion and brainstorming sessions.

Suggested Topics for Discussion

·  Who uses blocks programming environments and why?

·  Which features of blocks environments help or hinder users? How do we know? Which of these features are worth incorporating into more traditional IDEs? What helpful features are missing?

·  How can blocks environments and associated curricular materials be made more accessible to everyone, especially those with disabilities?

·  Can blocks programming appeal to a wider range of interests (e.g., by allowing connections to different types of devices, web services, data sources, etc.)?

·  What are the best ways to introduce programming to novices and to support their progression towards mastery? Do these approaches differ for for learners of computing basics and for makers?

·  What are the conceptual and practical hurdles encountered by novice users of blocks languages when they face the transition to text languages and traditional programming communities? What can be done to reduce these hurdles?

·  How can we best harness online communities to support growth through teaching, motivating, andproviding inspiration and feedback?

·  What roles should collaboration play in blocks programming? How can environments support that collaboration?

·  In these environments, what data can be collected, and how can that data be analyzed to determine answers to questions like those above? How can we use data to answer larger scale questions about early experiences with programming?

·  What are the lessons learned (both positive and negative) from creating first programming environments that can be shared with future environment designers?

Submission

We invite two kinds of submissions:

1.       A 1 to 4 page position statement describing an idea or research question related to the design, teaching, or study of blocks programming environments.

2.       A paper (up to 8 pages) describing previously unpublished results involving the design, study, or pedagogy of blocks programming environments.

All submissions must be made as PDF files to the Easy Chair Blocks and Beyond workshop submission site.

As with the Proceedings of the 1st Blocks and Beyond Workshop, we plan to publish the proceedings of the 2nd Workshop with the IEEE. Please use an IEEE Conference template to format your submission.

Important Dates

·  19 Jul 2017: Submissions due (due by end of day, anytime on Earth)

·  16 Aug 2017: Author notification

·  30 Aug 2017: Camera ready copies due

·  9-10 Oct 2017: Workshop in Raleigh

SIGCSE 2017 Preview: Ebooks, GP, EarSketch, CS for All, and more from Georgia Tech

I have written individual blog posts for each paper or other contributions at conferences like ICER or SIGCSE. Then sometimes, like this year, that’s just overwhelming. So please excuse me for talking about a bunch (I may not even get all of it) of Georgia Tech related CS Education work at SIGCSE 2017 this year. (Conference website is here, and program is here. The on-line program is really nice, which is here.)

Workshop 101: GP: A General Purpose Blocks-Based Language

Wednesday 7-10 pm: Room 618-619

I’m helping to organize a workshop with John Maloney, Yoshiki Ohshima, and Jens Mönig on GP. I blogged about GP here, and about the use of GP for Media Computation in a minimal manuals structure here. The workshop will be the first SIGCSE activity with GP. The plan is to move it into a public form next summer, and the team is looking for people who want to start using it for their classes.

Panel: The Role of CS Departments in The US President’s “CS for All” Initiative

Thursday 10:45-12: Room 6E

I was part of an effort at last year’s CRA Conference at Snowbird to get CS departments to participate in President Obama’s “CS for All” initiative (see blog post here). This year, Barbara Ericson, Rick Adrion, and Megean Garvin will tell us about how their CS departments are working to promote CS for All. I’m the moderator.

EarSketch: A STEAM-based Approach for Underrepresented Populations in High School Computer Science Education

Thursday 1:45-3:00: Room 615

Brian Magerko and Jason Freeman will present on EarSketch, which I just blogged about here. They are also presenting on Creativity in Authentic STEAM Education with EarSketch on Friday 1:45-3 in Room 612. And then again Saturday 10-10:45 as a demo, EarSketch, a web-application to teach Computer Science through Music

CS Principle Ebooks for Teachers and Students building on Educational Psychology Principles

Thursday 3-4:30 pm: NSF Showcase in Exhibition Space

Barb, Miranda Parker, and I will present our ebooks. I blogged about our ICER 2016 paper on ebooks here and our WiPSCE 2015 paper here).

BOF: Researching the K–12 Computer Science Framework

Thursday 5:30-6:20 pm: Room 613-614

I’m part of a BOF led by Pat Yongpradit of Code.org with Leigh Ann DeLyser of CSNYC and Kathi Fisler at Brown. The BOF session will allow researchers to discuss opportunities in K-12 CS ed research within five areas related to the implementation and future of the framework:

• Equity and access
• Learning progressions
• Pedagogical content knowledge (Knowledge teachers need to teach CS)
• Facilitating learning in other disciplines
• Policy and implementation within K–12 education systems

Workshop 310: Using and Customizing Open-Source Runestone Ebooks for Computer Science Classes

Friday 7-10 pm: Room 612

Barb, Brad Miller, and Paul Resnick will present on the Runestone platform that we build our ebooks on. Brad built Runestone, and Paul uses and extends it frequently for his Informatics course at U. Michigan. This is the first time that they’re teaching others how to use the platform, which is a great sign of the maturation of Runestone — from researcher and early-adopters into something that all CS educators can use.

Designing and Studying of Maker Oriented Learning to Transform Advanced Computer Science
Saturday 10-11:30, NSF Showcase area in Exhibitions

Zane Cochran, a student of my colleague Betsy DiSalvo, will present some of his work on using maker spaces to improve CS education.

Concepts and Practices: Designing and Developing A Modern K12 CS Framework

Saturday 10:45-12: Room 611

My PhD student, Miranda Parker (who has been working on privilege issues and on the SCS1), and Leigh Ann Delyser (of CSNYC and CS for All fame) will present on the new K-12 CS Framework (see blog post here) and the research support for it.

Workshop 401: Evidence Based Teaching Practices in CS

Saturday 3-6 pm: Room 618-619

Briana Morrison is leading the effort with Cynthia Lee, Leo Porter, Beth Simon, and me to present CS teaching practices for which we have an evidence-base. We’re drawing a lot on our New Faculty Workshops material.

Workshop 404: How to Plan and Run Effective Teacher Professional Development

Saturday 3-6 pm: Room 612

(YES! Dueling workshops!)

Barb is working with Rebecca Dovi and Ria Galanos on how to teach CS teacher professional learning opportunities. Barb is using a lot of the material that she’s developed for “Train the Trainer” sessions as part of ECEP.