Empowering Grade 5 Students with Computational Thinking Skills: A Comprehensive Learning Design

Abstract

This study addressed the need for teachers to establish learning design guidelines for effective teaching and to equip students with computational thinking skills. Specifically, the study aimed to achieve two main objectives: 1) to develop a computational thinking-based learning design centered on five sub-themes intended for fifth-grade elementary school students and 2) to assess the quality of the learning above design. The study involved thirty-three students from Kanisius Wirobrajan Elementary School (SD Kanisius Wirobrajan). The research findings revealed that: 1) a learning design based on computational thinking, which incorporated the Analyze, Design, Development, Implement, and Evaluation steps, was created for the fifth-grade elementary school students under five sub-themes, and 2) the overall quality of the learning design, assessed via validation by two lecturers and a teacher, was "very good" with a score of 3.61, with the recommendation that "small revisions" be made. Additionally, the quality of the learning design product based on implementation validation by a teacher was "very good," with a score of 3.93, and it was deemed not to require any revisions. The study's limited trial yielded encouraging results, with all students completing the learning design activities and enhancing their computational thinking skills.