Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to report on the concept map evaluation of an innovative STEM project for 4- and 5-year-old children. An American university research team developed and implemented a 3-month pilot program using engineering and robotics as the platform for teaching programming and problem solving. The engineering-focused lessons used a developmentally, age appropriate robot (KIBO) to teach simple programming skills while practicing a problem solving process designed to transfer to other settings. Researchers delivered the twice weekly lessons, integrated into the adopted prekindergarten curriculum, and implemented as part of the established center rotations. Researchers used child interviews and concept mapping as a measure of children’s knowledge of robotics and problem solving to estimate growth in their knowledge over time. Results indicated that the children exhibited increased knowledge of robotics, 93 %, and problem solving, 42 %, mostly resulting from the increased use of propositions and cross-links.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
National Science Board. https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/publications/2009/01_10_stem_rec_obama.pdf
Brenneman, K., Stevenson-Boyd, J., Frede, E.C.: Math and science in preschool: policies and practice. Presch. Policy Brief 19, 1–12 (2009)
Greenfield, D., Jirout, J., Dominguez, X., Greenberg, A., Maier, M., Fuccillo, J.: Science in the preschool classroom: a programmatic research agenda to improve science readiness. Early Educ. Dev. 20, 238–264 (2009)
Bers, M.: Blocks to Robots: Learning with Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom. Teacher’s College Press, New York (2008)
Bers, M.U., Ponte, I., Juelich, K., Viera, A., Schenker, J.: Teachers as designers: integrating robotics into early childhood education. Inf. Technol. Child. Educ. 1, 123–145 (2002)
Rogers, C., Portsmore, M.: Bringing engineering to elementary school. J. STEM Educ.: Innov. Res. 5(3), 17 (2004)
Weyth, P.: How young children learn to program with sensor, action, and logic blocks. J. Learn. Sci. 17, 517–550 (2008)
Cejka, E., Rogers, C., Portsmore, M.: Kindergarten robotics: using robotics to motivate math, science, and engineering literacy in elementary school. Int. J. Eng. Educ. 22, 711–722 (2006)
Clements, D.H.: The future of educational computing research: the case of computer programming. Inf. Technol. Child. Educ. Annu. 1, 147–179 (1999)
Sullivan, A., Bers, M.U.: Robotics in the early childhood classroom: learning outcomes from an 8-week robotics curriculum in pre-kindergarten through second grade. Int. J. Technol. Des. Educ. 26, 3–20 (2016)
Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations of Early Learning. http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/resources/training_preschool.html#mod2
Roberts-Holmes, G.: Doing Your Early Years Research Project. Sage Publications Ltd., London (2014)
Ribas, W.R.: Teacher Evaluations that Work!!, 2nd edn. Ribas Publications, Westwood (2005)
Novak, J.D., Gowin, D.B.: Learning How to Learn. Cambridge University Press, New York (1984)
Cañas, A.J., Coffey, J.W., Carnot, M.J., Feltovich, P., Hoffman, R.R., Feltovich, J., Novak, J.D.: A summary of literature pertaining to the use of concept mapping techniques and technologies for education and performance support, IHMC report (2003)
Cassata-Widera, A.E.: Concept mapping and early literacy: a promising crossroads. In: Cañas, A.J., Reiske, P., Åhlberg, M., Novak, J.D. (eds.) Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Concept Mapping, Tallinn, Estonia, and Helsinki, Finland, pp. 189–196 (2008)
Figueiredo, M., Lopes, A.S., Firmina, R., deSouse, S.: Things we know about the cow: concept mapping in a preschool setting. In: Cañas, A.J., Novak, J.D., González, F.M. (eds.) Proceeding of the First International Conference on Concept Mapping, Pamplona, Spain, vol. 2, pp. 163–166 (2004)
Hunter, J., Monroe-Ossi, H., Fountain, C.: Young florida naturalists: concept mapping and science learning of preschool children. In: Cañas, A.J., Reiske, P., Åhlberg, M., Novak, J.D. (eds.) Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Concept Mapping, Tallinn, Estonia, and Helsinki, Finland, pp. 756–763 (2008)
Monroe-Ossi, H., Wehry, S., Algina, J., Hunter, J.: Healthy habits through literacy: a concept mapping and health curriculum for preschool and prekindergarten children. In: Cañas, A.J., Reiske, P., Åhlberg, M., Novak, J.D. (eds.) Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Concept Mapping, Tallinn, Estonia, and Helsinki, Finland, pp. 422–429 (2008)
Novak, J.D., Cañas, A.J.: The theory underlying concept maps and how to construct and use them. Technical report IHMC CmapTools 2006-01, Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) (2006). http://cmap.ihmc.us/docs/theory-of-concept-maps
Wehry, S., Algina, J., Hunter, J., Monroe-Ossi, H.: Using concept maps transcribed from interviews to quantify the structure of preschool children’s knowledge about plants. In: Cañas, A.J., Reiske, P., Åhlberg, M., Novak, D. (eds.) Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Concept Mapping, Tallinn, Estonia, and Helsinki, Finland, pp. 732–739 (2008)
Kinchin, I.M.: Using concept maps to reveal understanding: a two tier analysis. Sch. Sci. Rev. 81, 41–46 (2000)
McClure, J.R., Bell, P.E.: Effects of an environmental education-related STS approach instruction on cognitive structures of preservice science teachers. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 341 582 (1990)
Yin, Y., Vanides, J., Ruiz-Primo, M.A., Ayala, C.C., Shavelson, R.J.: Comparison of two concept mapping techniques: implications for scoring, interpretations, and use. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 42, 166–184 (2005)
Derbentseva, N., Safayeni, F., Cañas, A.J.: Concept maps: experiments on dynamic thinking. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 44, 448–465 (2007)
Acknowledgement
The Crawford Early Childhood Research and Education Distinguished Professor Fund made possible the RAPP project through a generous gift to the University of North Florida Foundation and the Florida Institute of Education by Toni and Andy Crawford.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
McLemore, B., Wehry, S., Carlson, D., Monroe-Ossi, H., Fountain, C., Cosgrove, M. (2016). Using Concept Mapping to Assess 4- and 5-Year Old Children’s Knowledge in the Robotics and Programming for Prekindergarten Project. In: Cañas, A., Reiska, P., Novak, J. (eds) Innovating with Concept Mapping. CMC 2016. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 635. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45501-3_23
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45501-3_23
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-45500-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-45501-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)