Avaliação didática dos livros do sexto e sétimo anos da série Computação Fundamental

Abstract

Decades ago, computing education for children and young people took its first steps. Since then, several initiatives proposed the introductin of computing education from anearlyage, and various schools in Brazil and around the world have included computing in K-12 education. One implementation challenge is thes carcity of complete and coherent computing curricula for middle school. Despite the existing national and international curriculum guidelines, there is alack of instructional materials, especially evaluated materials. In any field of knowledge, textbooks are of paramount importance,serving as a guide for teachers inclass. Quality books make a significant difference instudent learning. Between 2019 and 2020, the Computação Fundamental book series was developed, based on standards from the CSTA curriculum frameworks. The books cover from the sixth to the ninth grade of middle school, and offer more than mere instruction in the use of computers, instead addressing knowledge of Computer Science,with lesson plans and activities. Thebooks are available in Portuguese and license dunder Creative Commons, inversions for both teachers and students. The objective of this work was to evaluate, from the perspective of teachers, the sixth and seventh grade textbooks of the Computação Fundamental series, with a focus on the quality of instructional materials, analyzing the adequacy of content to the age and development of the target audience as well as the quality of instructional resources. First, an evaluation of the sixth-grade book called Computação e Eu was carried out. Twelve researchers, among Computing Education researchers and Computing Teaching students, answered surveys that were developed based on the evaluation standards of Project 2061 and the TEC rubric. The questionnaires were composed by the categories Substance, Sophistication, Educational Design, Teacher Accessibility, Equity and Content,with quantitative and qualitative questions. Then the seventh-grade book, Computação e Comunidade, was evaluated by fourteen evaluators, among Computing Education researchers, Computing Teaching students and K-12 Computing teachers. The questionnaires kept the same pattern and evaluation categories. The results obtained in the evaluation of both books suggest that, ingeneral, the books are a good option for introducing computing content. As issues for improvement, we highlight the need to add assessment materials in the books, reinforcing concepts and definitions to aid teacher learning, and the better addressing of equity issues. Positive aspects include the spiral approach, attention to meaningful learning, detailed lesson plans, and encouragement of student collaboration and participation. The careful evaluation carried out allowed us to identify the advantages of the books and also to draw attention to their drawbacks. With them in mind, authors may improve the books in a second version. In addition, teachers interested in using the books now have a detailed assessment of their positive and negative aspects.