Browsing by Author "Luhtala, Julia"

Objectives. Understanding programming is considered an important part of technological literacy. Computational or algorithmic thinking is regarded as a fundamental skill for everyone. These are some of the reasons why programming became part of the curriculum in autumn 2016. This also increased the need for further education in programming. The purpose of this thesis is to analyse and interpret how the continuing education affects the programming teaching of class teachers. In addition, I also examine how the class teachers themselves think they will carry out programming teaching before continuing education course, after it and in the future. Methods. The material consisted of questionnaire replies from 101 class teachers on how to teach programming. All the subjects had completed at least one programming related continuing education course. The subjects were selected out of a broader data set based on that all of them had responded to two different surveys, which allowed examining the change. In addition, respondents were united by the fact that everyone taught grades 3–6. The material was analysed using data based content analysis. Results and conclusions. The study revealed that class teachers carried out more programming lessons which were also more versatile after participating in the continuing education. The class teachers also reported using different learning environments, robots and cooperation with their colleagues before and after the continuing education and in the future. The positive effects of the continuing education were mentioned much more often than the negative effects by class teachers. Some of these effects the teachers reported were increased knowledge and skills, increased enthusiasm and that working felt easier. These results can be used in arguing the usefulness of continuing education. In addition, the results can be seen as a resource in developing continuing education of programming.