The Intersection of Socioscientific Issues, Computation Thinking, and Design Thinking: Toward a Framework of Inquiry Driven Disruptive Pedagogy

The Next Generation Science Standards call for engineering design solutions using computer technologies, but many K-12 classrooms either do not have accessible technologies or the teacher pedagogical knowledge on how to effectively implement engineering design into the curriculum. Without access to computer or mobile technologies, teachers are faced with a challenge integrating design thinking and computational thinking into inquiry-based teaching practices. Embedding design thinking and computational thinking within a socioscientific framework is a possible solution. Socioscientific issues, design thinking, and computational thinking are thoroughly researched and published constructs. There has been some research suggesting a connection between design thinking and computational thinking, however pilot data suggest a potential intersection of the three concepts which became the crux for our research. This study sought to construct a pedagogical framework amalgamating socioscienfific issues, design thinking, and computational thinking for science teacher practice in classrooms without the use of technology. Practicing science teachers enrolled in a master’s level class served as the study’s participants and they were charged with designing a mixed reality Serious Educational Game embedding socioscientific issues in a climate change context. Incorporating a case study design with triangulated data sources that were collected through reflective journals, design documents, and observations, an iterative process was used to analyze data to build trustworthiness. Results suggest initial hypotheses of the potential commonality between the three constructs were not completely accurate, however a refined model emerged. Articulation of how to integrate the new model using socioscientific issues, design thinking, and computational thinking are discussed.