CTFest 2021: Sharing and Learning about Computational Thinking (CT) in Education

The CTFest: Sharing and Learning about Computational Thinking (CT) in Education was organised by the Office of Education Research (OER) and held from 6 September 2021 to 10 September 2021. Sponsored by a grant from the Google Data Centre Community Fund via the Tides Foundation, the conference was put together by a team (comprising NIE staff Professor Looi Chee Kit, Dr Peter Seow, Dr Wu Longkai, Mr Gi Soong Chee, Ms Wendy Huang, Ms Ker Chin Lee, and Associate Professor Bimlesh Wadhwa from NUS) dedicated to promoting computing and bringing CT to Singapore schools and communities for the past several years.

The CTFest 2021 edition comprised of a Students Event and Teachers Event. Both events were held online, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

CTFest Students Event was a free online September school holiday online activity for primary students aged 9 to 12 (primary 3 to 6) to learn creative coding, by animating their own Google logo using Scratch, a blocks-based programming language for beginners with no prior experience.  Students were encouraged to learn with their parent/guardian(s) or older siblings.

CTFest Teachers Event featured talks and discussions for teachers to learn best practices in the teaching of computational thinking. The attendees included teachers of computing, computer science, CPA, design and technology, and computing-related Applied Learning Programmes; colleagues from CPDD of MOE, Singapore Science Centre, and Polytechnics lecturers. In addition to local attendees, this year’s attendees featured international teachers. Most international teachers had taken part in the International Teachers Forum of the Fifth APSCE International Conference on Computational Thinking and STEM Education 2021.

This computing education fraternity in Singapore was established in part through our involvement in running three CT research projects, namely, Researching and Developing Pedagogies Using
Unplugged and Computational Thinking Approaches for Teaching Computing in the Schools (OER 04/16), Studying the Development of Computational Thinking Skills in Students’ Use of Physical Computing Devices (OER 03/18) and How to bring Computational Thinking (CT) into Mathematics classrooms: Designing for Disciplinary-specific CT (OER 10/18).

For the Students Event, the activity kicked off with an introduction on Monday, 6th September. After a demonstration of the platform, the participants worked on the logo animation project at their own pace. Facilitators were available live to answer questions. 

On Friday, 10th September, there was a concluding session conducted to show some of the students’ work and announce the winners of the creative, unusual, or innovative projects. Each student participant who had completed the logo animation project received an e-certificate and entry to a lucky draw. Additional prizes were awarded for creative, unusual, or innovative projects.  There were 8 project winners—4 from the lower primary category, and 4 from the upper primary category. There were 3 lucky draw winners. The prizes consisted of 4 Lego Mindstorms 51515 Robot Inventor Set and 7 mBot Ranger 3-in-1 Educational Robot Kits.

Photo of project winners with the organizing committee during the showcase

During the second half of the event, there was a panel discussion titled “What support and resources do teachers need to promote Computational Thinking education in Singapore?”. Moderated by Mr Gi Soong Chee from NIE, the panelists were: Ms Wendy Huang from NIE, Professor Leong Hon Wai from NUS School of Computing, and the speakers from the previous section. The panel discussion was highly interactive, and audience were encouraged to share their responses through the live google slides. The event concluded with a Q&A session and a closing speech by Professor Looi Chee Kit.