=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2755/shortpaper4
|storemode=property
|title=Preliminary Experiences Towards an Inclusion of Dramatists - Teach Logic with Language (short paper)
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2755/shortpaper4.pdf
|volume=Vol-2755
|authors=Anette Bentz,Bernhard Standl
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/issep/BentzS20
}}
==Preliminary Experiences Towards an Inclusion of Dramatists - Teach Logic with Language (short paper)==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2755/shortpaper4.pdf
Preliminary Experiences Towards an Inclusion of
Dramatists - Teach Logic with Language
Anette Bentz and Bernhard Standl
Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany
{anette.bentz,bernhard.standl}@ph-karlsruhe.de
Abstract. With the ongoing process of digitalisation, it is undoubtedly
necessary to integrate informatics as a compulsory part of school educa-
tion. Assuming that not all groups of pupils will become familiar with
the concepts of informatics easily, two questions arise: What types of
pupils can be identified with regard to the learning of informatics and
how can motivation and learning success of pupils with lower participa-
tion be increased? From literature we identified a way to classify two
types of pupils’ play styles: dramatists and patterners. For dramatists,
social interaction seems to be the key to motivation and learning success,
while patterners follow a more structured, straight-forward and planned
approach. In our preliminary study in our teaching-learning-lab, drama-
tists were, in opposite to patterners, significantly more motivated when
a coding task involved a story or social interaction. Further research is
aimed at investigating the effects of different workshop settings on the
motivation of these two learning types for an equal involvement of both
groups.
Keywords: Learning-styles · Motivation · Participation
1 Introduction
One of the reasons why students show different interests and motivation for in-
formatics, is probably due to their personal prior experiences with computers [7].
There has also been a lot of work in the field of gender distribution in connection
with informatics at school (e.g. [3]). Even though, pupils’ coding-related skills
are not necessarily related to the gender, pupils still own different characteristics
in the way they choose an approach for solving problems in informatics. This is
possibly also related to the different early childhood education of girls and boys.
Another distinction is also described by Papert, who mentions different aptitudes
of either for language or logic and that based on these individual characters,
the development of interest in the opposite skill can be mobilized [4]. Related
research on the distinction of learners’ characteristics was identified in child-
play, where two types of players as object-independent and object-dependent
were identified and named dramatists and patterners [2, 8, 9]). Dramatists show
strong interest in human surroundings and favour socio-dramatic play with for
example stuffed animals. Mitchel Resnick stated that these two types of styles
Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons
License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
2 A. Bentz and B. Standl
are not limited to early childhood education but can be observed at all ages.
Moreover, the patterners are preferred to the dramatists in science education
which again can be one of the reasons for less interest among some groups of
students towards these subjects [5]. Furthermore, in [6] it is described, that it
is possible to introduce robotics activities in a more appealing way for drama-
tists. As for dramatists social interaction seems to be the key to motivation and
learning success, patterners follow a more structured and planned approach.
The remainder of this work is structured as follows: First, the two play styles
of dramatists and patterners are described in more detail. Then we present the
research questions, followed by the planned workshop setting. We conclude this
paper with some insights into the first experiences we have had and a look at
possible further research.
2 Dramatists and Patterners
In Lifelong Kindergarten [5] Resnick associates play styles of dramatists and
patterners with students’ attitudes towards learning informatics. He explains
the different approaches of both play styles using an example: In one workshop,
primary school children were to work with LEGO robot kits. The patterners
immediately started working on a project and had an impressive result after a
short period of time. The dramatists instead started a project but interrupted
their work shortly after the start to first invent a framework story. They only
finished their project when the storyline was satisfactory. Still, the result of
dramatists was as sophisticated as the object of the patterners, but it took
significantly longer. If the workshop had ended earlier, the group of dramatists
would not have finished their project and would not have achieved a result in the
goals of the workshop. Resnick further explains that these different interaction
preferences can be observed among learners of all ages and adds a similar example
from university context. He also points out that not taking play styles into
account can lead to a negative attitude towards science for dramatists, when
classes are designed only for patterners
3 Research Question
Resnick’s experiences with the workshops for primary school pupils may not
be transferred directly to workshops of our teaching-learning lab for secondary
school pupils. Nevertheless, we are interested to what extent the play styles of
dramatists and patterners can be taken into account in order to improve moti-
vation and learning success in informatics. In order to examine the differences
between dramatists and patterners and to make a choice of which measures
are appropriate for the corresponding groups, we plan to conduct and evaluate
workshops with different social interactions in our teaching-learning laboratory.
Considering this, our overall objective is, to design workshops for our teaching-
learning-lab to involve dramatists and patterners equally aimed at increasing
Title Suppressed Due to Excessive Length 3
motivation and learning success in informatics education. In doing so, we first
identify 7th grade pupils’ learning types as dramatists or patterners and based
on that, we design a workshop. In this paper we share preliminary results of our
observations.
4 Workshop Setting
The workshop Algorithmic Thinking lasts 90 minutes and is conducted with 7th
grade students. The students’ tendency towards the dramatist or patterners is
determined by means of a survey which resulted in a random mixture of drama-
tists and patterners. The focus of the workshop was to teach students the concept
of algorithms and to improve the ability to solve problems. At the beginning of
the workshop we introduced robots contextualized with socially relevant top-
ics and made comparisons with playful models. In our workshop we use Sphero
Minin and SPRK+ robots, which can be programmed with the Sphero EDU en-
vironment that supports block programming. In the main part of the workshop
we used both ”unplugged” methods and ”plugged” programming [1]. The first
part of the workshop, the unplugged phase, was based on the ideas of Papert
[4], in which the students walked through the room and made drawings to learn
programming. Since our goal was to include more social interaction, we adapted
the idea and let a pupil play the well-known ”turtle”. Thus, in our workshop
situation, the students split into pairs, one student plays the programmer and
the other the robot. The pupils defined a task, e.g. guiding the partner through
the room or having a simple picture drawn. For programming, the programmer
arranged magnetic blocks on a board on which commands such as ”Take a step
to the left” or ”Draw a line up” are written. The blocks look similar to the
blocks in the block programming language. The execution was done by the stu-
dent robot. The team then compared whether the action was performed correctly
and, if necessary, modified misleading commands. Through these activities, the
pupils were introduced to the basics of block programming and debugging in a
haptic and social way, without being distracted by the advanced functionality
of a real development environment on a computer. Furthermore, the students
either developed a basic idea of algorithmic thinking or moved towards a deeper
understanding and experimented with variables and functions. Subsequently a
simple real robot and a software as development environment were presented.
After the students gained proficiency in controlling the robot, they were asked
to continue with challenges in which the robot performs different tasks, for ex-
ample rolling through a maze. The students could choose a task of their choice
and work alone or in pairs. The tasks varied in difficulty and learning guides
were available to support the students in their learning.
5 First results of the preliminary study
The first tests were conducted with four girls, which were identified as dramatists
by long term observation. The pupils volunteered to take part in the project
4 A. Bentz and B. Standl
within a free playing time. The unplugged programming part rather met the
’pattern style’. Nevertheless, the dramatists were surprisingly committed. They
enjoyed designing a simple picture, programming it and watching the partner’s
drawing progress. For the ”plugged”-part, we provided a programmable ball in
the size of a golf ball as robot and simple programming tasks that they could
solve with the knowledge from the unplugged part. The students spent some
time with it but were not so enthusiastic anymore after a while. They explained
that the robot should perform a real task, such as cleaning up the floor. We
decided to let them create their own task using available materials like paper,
pens and barriers. Very patiently they drew a nice labyrinth on a flipchart and
added obstacles. When the labyrinth was finished and the robot was ready to
be programmed, they lost interest. It was illuminating that the students were
very motivated about the unplugged programming part, but then lost interest
in the plugged part, although the structure of the tasks were very similar. As a
consequence, we changed the tasks and added a social component. We let them
play the game ’cat and mouse’, where one robot is supposed to catch the other,
using block programming. In this game, two pupils sit opposite each other in
front of a framed, square meter area. The area holds various obstacles. One
pupil has a golf ball sized robot (Sphero Mini) which plays the mouse and the
other has a baseball sized robot (Sphero SPRK+), which plays the cat. Both
robots can be programmed using block techniques. The cat is supposed to catch
the mouse by touching it and the mouse is supposed to flee into the ‘mouse hole
represented by a flat circle. The pupils are allowed to execute a limited amount
of commands in a row. Now the emphasis was on playing with a real person and
the programming was just the tool. In this setting the pupils were much more
motivated in carrying out the task.
6 Further Research
In the preliminary study the dramatists were significantly more motivated when
the programming task involved social interaction. The study was carried out
with a small number of test persons and therefore only gives a first impression.
However, the initial results indicate that more investigations are worthwhile.
Therefore, further research is needed to investigate the effects of different work-
shop settings on the motivation on pupils with different play styles.
7 Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Vector Foundation.
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