The Development of STEM Learning Activities to Enhance Computational Thinking for Secondary School Students

Abstract

            This research aimed to develop STEM learning activities to enhance students’computational thinking skills, and the results of learning management with this learning activities which affected the

computational thinking for secondary school students in the computing course. The study groups were 30 secondary school students in Phranakhorn Si Ayutthaya who were studying in semester 1, academic year 2018. They were selected by purposive sampling. The research instruments were (1) STEM education lesson plans, and STEM learning activities for computational thinking developments; (2) The students’journals; and (3) Computational thinking test. The research was divided into three phases. The first phase focused on the constructive lesson plans ,and learning activities which aimed to develop students’computational thinking skills. Meanwhile, the second phase was implemented by the lesson plans and learning activities with the study group. The third phase was the evaluation of the effectiveness of learning activities on develop students’computational thinking skills. The results performed learning activities can develop students’computational thinking skills, because of these activities. The students were empirically challenged with daily problems. They also required to used their computational thinking skills to solve the problems by decomposing problem, pattern recognition, thinking abstraction ,and implementing algorithm for programming. This study suggested that STEM learning activities could be effectively used in computing course.