Join us at our free online research seminars
The Raspberry Pi Foundation hosts regular online seminars focusing on current computing education research topics. Featuring presentations from researchers from around the world, the seminars provide the opportunity to hear about some of the latest work in the field of computing education research, make connections with fellow researchers, and take part in discussions.
Sign up to our seminars mailing list and we’ll be in touch with details of how to take part
All researchers, academics, educators, and students with an interest in computing education research are welcome!
Catch up on our previous seminars: You can watch all our seminars after they have taken place on the previous seminars page.
Read our seminar proceedings: Presenters from our seminars have contributed articles to Understanding computing education Volume 1, Volume 2, and Volume 3 — download and read these free publications now.
Dates and format
The seminars take place on the first Tuesday each month at 17:00–18:30 GMT / 12:00–13:30 ET / 9:00–10:30 PT / 18:00–19:30 CET.
The focus of our seminars are on computing education research in school/with young people. We aim to present recent and relevant academic research through our line-up of speakers, who are all currently actively researching in the field. We hope you find their insights useful, and can take something away from each presentation for your own practice, study or research.
We’re also keen to encourage discussion where everyone’s views are welcome and listened to. We do this through breaking into small groups and sharing perspectives on the presentation. We hope that through these talks, we can build up a community of participants who will get to know others with similar interests — a bit like a very slow conference! Thus we really look forward to your participation and getting to know you.
Join us at our next seminar!
Our current seminar series is on the theme of primary (K–5) computing education research – teaching and teachers. Through this series we are exploring computing for young people and their educators, while focussing specifically on primary (K-5) teaching contexts.
We will be hearing from the following speakers:
| Date | Topic | Presenter/s |
| 18 Apr 2023 |
What does research say about computer science integration in primary schools | Dr Monica McGill (CSEdResearch.org) |
| 9 May 2023 |
Teaching primary learners how to be data citizens | Kate Farrell (University of Edinburgh) |
| 6 Jun 2023 |
Young children’s ScratchJr project scores and processes across a 12-week coding curriculum | Aim Unahalekhaka (Tufts University) |
| 12 Sep 2023 |
Giving appropriate feedback to primary school children | Luisa Greifenstein (University of Passau) |
| 10 Oct 2023 |
To be announced | To be announced |
| 7 Nov 2023 |
Computational thinking in primary schooling: Thinking beyond computer science | Dr Aman Yadav (Michigan State University) |
What does research say about computer science integration in primary schools? (18 April 2023)
Dr Monica McGill (CSEdResearch.org)
Computer Science (CS) is in its early stages of being taught to primary school learners within the United States. It still remains unknown how best to teach CS to students; however, evidence suggests that integrating CS into other subject areas may yield positive learning gains.
Our research question for this study was: What does existing literature indicate as promising practices when integrating CS into other subjects? To answer this, we conducted a systematic literature review to identify articles that investigate the integration of computational thinking and/or computer science in primary school formal learning environments. At this presentation, we will share our findings from the literature review, supplemented with findings from interviews conducted with researchers with expertise in CS integration. Further, as teachers struggle to find time to add another subject, we discuss how teaching integrated CS can leverage their teaching time without sacrificing other subject areas.
Speaker:
Dr Monica McGill is the Founder, President, and CEO of CSEdResearch.org, a 501(c)(3) non-profit focused on improving K–12 CS education for all children by enabling and disseminating exemplary, evidence-driven research. Dr McGill is passionate about computing education research, which has led the organisation to conduct critical K–12 CS education research sponsored by various organisations, including the National Science Foundation, Google, Amazon Future Engineer, the Computer Science Teachers Association, Code.org, and many more. She blends her experiences as a computer scientist and professor of computer science and game design with her experiences conducting equity-focused education research.
Teaching primary learners how to be data citizens (9 May 2023)
Kate Farrell (University of Edinburgh)
Data science is the ability to collect, analyse, interpret, and communicate and ask questions about data. As technology makes it easier to collect vast amounts of data, the skills to use data to solve problems will become even more important to today’s learners.
This session will introduce you to how data literacy can be taught in primary and early years education across different curricular areas. We will see how learners can explore data to solve real-life problems to benefit their schools and communities. We will look at digital and non-digital pedagogical approaches to teaching data science and the range of available resources and ideas, including our popular live lessons that have been played by over 20,000 learners.
Join us to find out how learners can explore data through everyday objects like Lego bricks; investigate their world by seeing data from the pressure waves from volcanoes; and use data to defeat a group of eco-friendly, yet villainous, Vikings!
Speaker:
Kate Farrell is an educator with expertise in data science, computing science, digital media computing, and moving image education. She advised on the new national computing science curriculum in Scotland for learners aged 3–15. She also wrote guides to teaching computing science for early years, primary, and secondary practitioners (available free at TeachCS.Scot) and developed badge activities in computational thinking with Girlguiding, UK. She now works on the Data Education in Schools project, developing data science and data literacy lessons, resources, and professional learning for primary and secondary schools in Scotland. In her spare time, Kate likes playing board games and breaking out of escape rooms.
Young children’s ScratchJr project scores and processes across a 12-week coding curriculum (6 June 2023)
Aim Unahalekhaka (Tufts University)
This seminar will present two ScratchJr studies, which were part of the Coding as Another Language (CAL) project. The first study is the development and testing of the ScratchJr Project Rubric, which has been used to evaluate children’s purposeful creation on the coding and project design aspects of ScratchJr. The study showed that although children (ages 6–8) were able to create more complex projects over time, there were some coding concepts that children uncommonly used. The second study evaluated common processes that young children followed when creating their ScratchJr projects. The implications of this study are essential to inform how teachers and parents may support young children’s creative and exploratory processes when learning with tablet-based coding applications.
In small groups, seminar participants will use a rubric to evaluate their ScratchJr projects (or provided ScratchJr projects) and discuss the key areas that can be enhanced. (Bring a tablet with ScratchJr downloaded if you have one!) Furthermore, you will brainstorm the teaching strategies that can support different creation processes children may use to create coding projects.
Speaker:
Apittha (Aim) Unahalekhaka, Ed.M., is a final-year doctoral candidate at Tufts University’s Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development and a graduate researcher at the DevTech Research Group. Her current research focuses on using data science for early childhood education and learning analytics applications in classroom settings, particularly how children’s engagement patterns with ScratchJr relate to their learning experiences. Her interests include socio-emotional learning, constructionism, adaptive instructional systems, and machine learning. She received her B.S. at the University of Toronto with a double major in Neuroscience and Economics and her Ed.M. at Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Giving appropriate feedback to primary school children (12 September 2023)
Luisa Greifenstein (University of Passau)
Programming in primary schools presents a lot of opportunities, such as the chance to promote positive attitudes towards computer science at an early stage. At the same time, educators need to give corrective feedback that can enhance learning, but might also reduce positive emotions. In this seminar, we will therefore focus on strategies for giving appropriate feedback. We present some findings of our survey conducted with experienced teachers and the results of our own workshops where we evaluated different feedback options and the children’s opinions on them. By this, we want to describe not only the content of the feedback but also discuss encouraging ways of giving it. Another strategy to support the process of giving feedback is using automated analysis tools. We therefore show the Litterbox tool that detects bug patterns, smells, and so-called perfumes in Scratch and mBlock code.
Speaker:
Luisa Greifenstein did her degree in primary school education and in media computer science. She now connects her two interests in the project “primary::programming” at the University of Passau, Germany, where she is currently doing her PhD. Luisa is keen on finding encouraging ways of giving corrective feedback and thereby engaging children in programming. She has given multiple workshops and courses for primary school children on creative physical computing and first software programming. In all this, she seeks to include the educational inspiration received from her Montessori diploma course.
Computational thinking in primary schooling: Thinking beyond computer science (7 November 2023)
Dr Aman Yadav (Michigan State University)
Computational thinking has been argued as a way to bring computer science learning experiences to formal schooling. However, there are still questions about its value and whether computational thinking is any different from other forms of thinking (such as mathematical thinking) that were argued as being important for all learners. In this talk, Aman will discuss what makes computational thinking unique for primary schooling and how we should go beyond pushing computer science goals when integrating computational thinking. He will discuss findings from the CT4EDU project that showcase what primary teachers consider to be the value of computational thinking. Aman will also discuss the need to broaden the goals of computing education to create a more just and equitable world.
Speaker:
Dr Aman Yadav is a Lappan-Phillips Professor of Computing Education in the College of Education and College of Natural Science at Michigan State University with extensive experience in research, evaluation, and teacher professional development. His areas of expertise include computer science education, problem-based learning, and online learning. His research and teaching focus on improving student experiences and outcomes in computer science and engineering at the K–16 level. He recently co-edited the book, Computational Thinking in Education: A Pedagogical Perspective, which tackles how to integrate computational thinking, coding, and subject matter in relevant and meaningful ways. His work has been published in several leading journals, including ACM Transactions on Computing Education, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Journal of Engineering Education, and Communications of the ACM.