Teaching "Lawfulness" With Kodu

This paper introduces reasoning about lawful behavior as an important computational thinking skill and provides examples from a novel introductory programming curriculum using Microsoft’s Kodu Game Lab. We present an analysis of assessment data showing that rising 5th and 6th graders can understand the lawfulness of Kodu programs. We also discuss some misconceptions students may develop about Kodu, their causes, and potential remedies. CCS Concepts •Social and professional topics → Model curricula; K-12 education; Computational thinking; Keywords Kodu Game Lab; formal reasoning; programming idioms

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2016
• Where: SIGCSE
• Authors: David S. Touretzky, Christina Gardner-McCune, Ashish Aggarwal
• Keywords: Education, SIGCSE 2016