Fostering elementary students’ computing career aspirations through a physiological computing curriculum
As a recently funded project framed on the notion that future generations of engineers and scientists need skills related to creating computer applications and programs associated with our movements and emotions via electrical activity, the proposed project aims to engage diverse young learners (grades 4 & 5) in a curriculum through the construction of physiological computing applications.
Our strategic and innovative integration of physiological computing, STEM, and career enrichment to engage upper elementary students in developing STEM+C self-efficacy and career aspirations will advance research in STEM+C education in several ways. By combining an innovative technology experience and authentic career exploration activities, we will develop elementary-level physiological computing educational resources that currently do not exist and test the implementation with more than 20 afterschool educators and 350 upper elementary students, most from historically underrepresented groups in Alabama. The impact of this project will be further enhanced by leveraging existing community partnerships outreach programs, which will create opportunities to attract and sustainably engage young students in STEM+C activities throughout and beyond the project span. Our project efforts will have a long-term impact on preparing STEM+C problem solvers to address the talent shortage challenges.
This project will be led by Dr. Feiya Luo (Principal Investigator), Dr. Amy Hutchison (Co-PI), and Dr. Chris Crawford (Co-PI).
Updates
During Fall 2024 we have been working on different camp activities, e.g. Makey Makey, Ozobot maze, mBot, Vex, etc. To ensure that the activities will run smoothly during camp we’ve been creating instructions, worksheets and flowcharts for teachers and participants. Additionally, the team have been testing the materials for our summer camp activities in cooperating school with teachers and students in upper elementary grades to see what additional information will be needed and where the students get stuck during the activities.
In an initial brainstorm session with the participating teachers and the research team in July 2024 we clarified standards to be used and state the research purposes. In this session the team structured a schedule for a one-week-long physiological computing summer camp and created ideas for possible activities during the camp.
Conference Presentations
- Luo, F., Hutchison, A., Crawford, C., Nasrin, F., Awoyemi, D. (2025). Collaborative design of a week-long physiological computing summer camp with elementary teachers. Poster presented at the SIGCSE Technical Symposium, Pittsburgh, PA.
- Abedini, P., Luo, F., Liu, R., & Hutchison, A. (2026, February). Gender differences in gaze patterns during block-based programming: A multimodal literacy perspective. Poster presented at the SIGCSE Technical Symposium, Pittsburgh, PA.
Publications
- Luo, F., Nasrin, F., Abedini, P., Cao, C., Mohi, M., Hutchison, A., Crawford, C. (under review). Creating an immersive experience with sensors in computing: positive impacts on elementary students’ self-efficacy and conceptual understanding.
- Luo, F., Hutchison, A., Nasrin, F., Amayou, J., Abedini, P., Awoyemi, D., Mousavi, V., Crawford, C. (under review). Promoting elementary students’ computer science conceptual knowledge and coding performance: A mixed methods case study.
- Luo, F., Hutchison, A., Nasrin, F., Amayou, J., Abedini, P., Awoyemi, D., Mousavi, V., Crawford, C. (under review). A disciplinary literacy approach for promoting elementary school computer science education.
- Luo, F., Hutchison, A., Crawford, C., Nasrin, F., Awoyemi, D. (2025). Collaborative design of a weeklong physiological computing summer camp with elementary teachers. In Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. https://doi.org/10.1145/3641554