Our newsletters highlight a variety of people, organizations, and resources that are doing work to broaden participation and expand equitable and engaging computer science and STEM opportunities. We are honored to work in this space along with so many talented and passionate individuals and want to help bring attention to their work.
This Week’s Spotlight: Playful Problem Solving Research Project
David DeLiema, an assistant professor in the College of Education and Human Development at University of Minnesota, is launching a new research project called Playful Problem Solving. This research study aims to better understand how middle school youth solve
problems within a puzzle-based video game. Ultimately, they hope to use the
knowledge gained to develop and provide practical resources for parents, teachers, and community programs to support productive problem solving and build youth problem solving skills.
Would your middle school child (10-14 years old) like to try out a super fun puzzle-based video game?
Your middle schooler would work with a researcher during three 1.5 hour game play sessions over the course of 1 month, which would involve screen capture video data collection.
Eligibility Criteria:
Child aged 10-14 years old
Access to a computer capable of running routine applications like Zoom for data collection
Your child is fluent or could respond thoughtfully to open-ended questions in English
Participants will be given a $30 Amazon gift card as compensation for their time.
FIND OUT MORE HERE
And if a research study seems too much of a commitment, try out the video game that will be used with participants, Baba Is You, It wonderfully riffs on programming ideas. You'll enjoy it if you have some spare time and $15 to access it. It's easy to play on a laptop!
This Week's Project Inspiration Theme: Make Your Dreams Come True Day
January 13th is Make Your Dream Come True Day!
A new year calls for new dreams, no matter how big or small! January 13th is a day to dream big and make your dreams come true. To help start making your dreams come true this year, try using your computational thinking skills to create a mind map where you can put down all the dreams that come to mind. A mind map is a diagram to visually organize information, try using this website to create yours. Remember, this is just a suggestion; use your creative genius to create a personalized project!
We hope you create a CS project in honor of Make Your Dreams Come True Day! If you do, please share it with us.
Share Your CS to Go Projects!
How to Share: We invite CS to Go with Code Savvy participants to consider sharing your projects publicly with the Code Savvy and greater #MNCodes community via video with Flipgrid. We can’t wait to see what you create! Please be sure to follow online safety guidelines and get adult permission before sharing. You can find our Privacy Policy here.