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Conceptualising, designing and enacting a zone of proximal development for an after-school coding curriculum
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Type
Book chapter
Citation
Lim, K. Y. T., Njondimackal, D. J., & Lok, J. B. (2023). Conceptualising, designing and enacting a zone of proximal development for an after-school coding curriculum. In D. W. L. Hung (Ed.), Moving beyond grades to purposeful learning: Lessons from Singaporean research (pp. 113–125). Springer. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4705-8_7
Abstract
This chapter describes an intervention which was enacted from April 2018 to February 2019, in an orphanage in Singapore. The learning intervention comprised a coding curriculum conceptualised, designed and enacted by two high-school students, in their capacity as interns to the Lead Author. Written in the form of a narrative inquiry, the chapter describes the trajectory charted by the students as they sought to take their conceptual expertise in the Python coding language to design a scaffolded curriculum through the lens of a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). This curriculum was enacted on a weekly basis after formal curriculum hours, with one of the orphans who was their peer in terms of age (prior to the intervention, the students were not acquainted with the orphan). The chapter thus describes the reflections and learning points about their personal ontologies of coding, and about their struggles as they appropriated the epistemologies of curriculum designer and tutor—as the three peers met each week for the better part of a year. The chapter therefore has potential takeaways for those interested in peer-based learning, non-formal after-school contexts of learning, as well as the place of coding and computational thinking in the curriculum.
Date Issued
2023
ISBN
9789819947041 (print)
9789819947058 (online)
Publisher
Springer
Series
Studies in Singapore Education: Research, Innovation & Practice