Instructional Procedure and Strategy of Primary School Programming Education Focusing on Cultivating Computational Thinking

Based on the analysis of some famous instructional cases in programming education and in-depth interviews with primary school teachers who are engaged in programming education, this paper focuses on the instructional procedure and strategies of primary school programming education for cultivating students' computational thinking. This examination reveals the current situation and possible problems in the practice of cultivating computational thinking and provide some useful references. Continuous comparison are used to code and analyze the interview data. The article founds that the instructional procedure of cultivating computational thinking in programming education generally involves five major stages: knowledge review, new knowledge exploration, problem analysis, programming on computer, and the stage of reflection. Instructional strategies accordingly include: mind map-supported, unplugged programming, flow chart use, pair programming, log reflection, and more. Finally, the paper concludes with the problems that appeared in teaching, especially in the stage of new knowledge exploration, unplugged programming and pair-programming.