Programming Language Knowledge Transfer that Teachers Observe in their Classrooms
There has been significant progress in increasing the access to computing education for many K-12 students, including states adopting CS standards and/or requiring CS courses. This includes the creation of block-based programming languages to make programming more accessible to younger students. Despite this progress, a new challenge has emerged: Students often struggle to transfer conceptual knowledge when transitioning to a new programming language (e.g., transitioning to a text-based programming after learning a block-based programming language). This poster presents the results of teacher interviews regarding the examples of knowledge transfer they observe in their classrooms. These interviews are part of an overarching project that aims to address the challenge of knowledge transfer between programming languages by developing a framework to support such transfer and ultimately deliver curricular supports that can be used to aid students’ productive knowledge transfer between programming languages.