25/10/22, 23:33 Beyond programming: Scratch as a constructivist learning environment | ScratchEd

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Contributed by Ziad Baroudi, November 03, 2011
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Keywords: Scratch, constructivism, teaching girls

This post is written by my colleague Sarah Macdonald. In it, Sarah tells about teaching
Scratch for the first time to her year 7 girls.

Flashback, 2010
 
 
End of year curriculum planning meeting.  Students departed.  Reports written.  Teachers fatigued...
and my Head of IT has just announced a major change in the IT curriculum for the following year. 
We will be teaching Scratch.  What do I know about Scratch?  I know it’s about programming and
primary schools are using it to create endless cartoons about a yellow cat.  Why Scratch?  I realise I
have a lot to learn.

Mid year 2011

Parent / teacher interviews.  Picture a hall, set up similar to ‘speed dating’.  But replace hopeful
singles with concerned parents on one side of the desk, and well intentioned teachers on the other. 
It’s getting late, my 20th parent tonight sits down. Mr Smith introduces himself as a parent of a
student in my IT class and asks the questions that many other parents have been asking this year. 
Why Scratch?  Why teach my child programming?  How can you expect to teach programming to
children?

My answer always refreshes my own belief in why I have come to love teaching Scratch.

I say “Mr Smith, when I first saw Scratch I wondered how many of the students this unit of work
would reach.  I mean, even if one student becomes interested in computer programming after this
unit, is that enough to teach programming to an entire class?  From a programming point of view,
Scratch takes all of the essential constructs like sequencing, conditional branching, control
structures, data manipulations and places it in an easy environment, which every student is able to
use as simply as using children's building blocks.  What you need to understand, is that Scratch
teaches much more than computer programming.  Scratch is important because it is about
teaching students to solve their own problems and getting them to figure things out and
discovering how to work things out for themselves.”

When asked about Scratch, students gave many suggestions as to its importance:

“Scratch taught me to fix problems on my own.”

 “it made me be efficient with my time.”

“it taught me that I need to try new things when it didn’t work the first time”

“I took pride in my work, because I had done it all by myself.”

I also explained to Mr Smith that as an English teacher I am always concerned by the plethora of
students who seem reluctant to think for themselves.  Those who ‘want the answer’ to their essay
question are unable to see English as an exploration of ideas because they are spending far too
much time and energy ‘getting the answer right’.  Scratch teaches students that they need to
understand their own problems, make mistakes and explore alternatives.  In this way the
students are far more active in their learning and they are in charge of finding the solution, not just
waiting for the teacher to give them the answer.

I tried to get parents to understand that the role of the teacher should be to facilitate learning in the
classroom.  If we focus on giving them tools to discover and problem solve for themselves, students
will be far more equipped to take charge of their own learning.  Also when they are ‘in charge’ they
are motivated to keep discovering various alternatives and solutions.  This is exactly what Scratch
does.  It’s not just about programming.  It’s about having an aim, looking for solutions,
attempting them, learning from mistakes and seeking new ways to solve their individual
problem.  If students learn to do this through Scratch, they can take those skills to their other
curriculum areas, whether it be English, Art, Science or Math.  Problem solving without the focus on
the teacher will allow the student to grow as learners.

What I am really getting at is  the importance of Constructivist Teaching in building

independent thinkers.  Constructivist teaching is based on the belief that learning occurs as
learners are actively involved in a process of meaning and knowledge construction rather than
passively receiving information.  Learners are the makers of meaning and knowledge. Constructivist
teaching fosters critical thinking and creates motivated and independent thinkers.  

A Constructivist Classroom is a Student-Centered Classroom.  Scratch provides the perfect

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25/10/22, 23:33 Beyond programming: Scratch as a constructivist learning environment | ScratchEd
opportunity for students to take charge of their own learning.  While teaching Scratch, my
students would often ask “How do I get my character to do x?”  I would explain that it is up to them
to find a solution.  A blank and frustrated look would often follow,  however, students soon learn that
they could watch tutorials, read instructions, ask their peers or just have a play and learn from their
mistakes.  They would often try a series of alternatives, sometimes taking hours to learn a new
programming skill.  At first this would frustrate the students.  They would whinge, begging “just tell
me, and I could be finished by now!”  I would then explain that it is the process that I am concerned
with, not the final product.  In this way the classroom has moved from teacher-centered, where
teachers are the distributor of all things knowledge - to student-centered, where the students
learning and discovery is in their own hands.

I must admit, I find it all very exciting.  Langer and Applebee (1), leading educationalists and
advocates for the Constructivist Classroom observe that the role of the teacher needs to
dramatically change.  They state “a teacher's role in providing information decreases and is
replaced by a strengthened role in eliciting and supporting students' own thinking (p. 77) and
meaning-making abilities. In a process approach to learning, ideas are allowed to develop in the
learner's own mind through a series of related, supportive activities; where taking risks and
generating hypotheses are encouraged; and where new skills are learned in supportive instructional
contexts.”(Langer and Applebee)  Scratch is the perfect environment to adopt supportive
instructional contexts which allow students to take risks and generate their own pathways. To be
honest, I was amazed how much I enjoyed stepping away from the front of the classroom
and simply watching students search for answers on their own.

Last year, listening to my Head of IT praise Scratch, I believed it would only be of interest and
limited benefit to the minority who get a kick out of writing endless lines of script.  However, it is
much more than that.  It has shown me that in an optimum environment, students are able to
master skills on their own, teach others, learn patience, feel ownership of their
achievements  and truly understand what many educationalists are advocating - When we
have command over our own learning we are able to digest much more than content, we become
skilled in the process and learn how to learn.

(1): Applebee, A.N. (1993). Literature in the secondary school: Studies

of curriculum and instruction in the United States. Urbana, Il: National
Council of Teachers of English. 

Comments

Karen Covington Exactly!  Ziad, what a wonderful elaboration in support of the

Member constructivist teaching model and teachers as facilitators.
February 29, 2012

mm I have had more success at letting students find the answers than my
Member own sons. It is difficult when the project has to be done by X date and
November 14, 2011
your son is struggling to find the answer. I have jumped in cause the
teacher is looking for the finished result and not the process, where in
my class I dont care about the project as much as the finished result.

Flavia Dyer I agree with you.  Just standing back and watching bright minds at
Member work, descovering by themselves how to make things work, makes me
November 08, 2011
glad to be a teacher.  Scratch does make student´s think and enjoy it!!!

Flavia Dyer

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