The Solothurn Project: Bringing Computer Science Education to Primary Schools in Switzerland

Abstract

Currently Switzerland is going through a major reform in its education system. One of its most ambitious and important goals is the inclusion of Computer Science Education already on the primary school level, an important measure in achieving the establishment of an information society. Such a reform raises questions about the appropriate types of approaches to be developed and employed for an effective implementation of Computer Science Education concepts in Swiss primary schools. To this end, the project "Scalable Game Design Solothurn" was developed and evaluated. This project both trained teachers and exposed students to Computational Thinking concepts through the two Computational Thinking Tools AgentSheets and AgentCubes online. Results show that teaching Computational Thinking through Scalable Game Design is not only feasible on the primary school level but also enjoyable, with AgentSheets and AgentCubes online proving to be sustainable and effective tools for the implementation of Computer Science Education on this school level. Further analysis of the data enables us to make recommendations regarding optimal ways of implementation for the Swiss reality and point towards new research directions.