Examining Pre-service Teachers’ Ability to Incorporate Computational Thinking into Lesson Plans: A Comparison of Two Digital Technologies

Although not every student will become a computer scientist, the ubiquitous nature of technology in the modern world requires all students to understand the thought processes that underpin Computer Science, dubbed Computational Thinking. At present, very few teachers are well equipped to incorporate computational thinking into their lessons, requiring both training for in-service and preservice teachers. This study looks at preservice teachers’ lesson plans using concept mapping and programming tools to determine the presence of CT within the lesson plans and lesson plans’ overall quality. Our results show that while preservice teachers’ lessons are higher quality when employing concept mapping tools, their lessons employ greater varieties of CT when using programming tools. These results point to computing tools varied effects on how preservice teachers incorporate CT into their lessons.