Abstract
The need to prepare teachers for a fast-changing world is currently more crucial than ever before. This is due to the unprecedented and rapid changes experienced in our societies, which disrupt teaching and learning in education systems. It is against this background that this study investigated the experiences and learnings of pre-service teachers’ participation in a Scratch Coding Club (SCC) – an informal programme that was designed to enhance prospective teachers’ preparation for teaching in a rapidly changing world. Thus, the aim of the study was to investigate the experiences and learnings of pre-service teachers’ participation in a Scratch Coding Club in relation to the enhancement of their preparation for teaching. The following research question guided the study: What do pre-service teachers experience and learn from participating in a Scratch Coding Club (SCC) that could enhance their preparation for teaching?
This study involved two cohorts of pre-service teachers at the University of Johannesburg. A total of 24 pre-service teachers out of many who participated in the SCC completed and submitted portfolios (which were not compulsory). These 24 pre-service teachers served as participants in the research. They were chosen because of their active and consistent involvement in the SCC (by attending Saturday sessions, catch-up sessions, creating Scratch artefacts and sharing reflections), and they showed commitment by documenting their learning processes through their portfolios (which contained Scratch artefacts and reflections). An interpretive research approach was adopted because I wanted to comprehend and interpret the pre-service teachers’ lived experiences while learning to code with Scratch, what they learnt and how their experiences and learnings prepared them for teaching. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and portfolios. The portfolios contained pre-service teachers’ reflections and Scratch artefacts. The Scratch artefacts were used to look for evidence of learning gains, while semi-structured interviews and reflections (from the portfolios) were transcribed and analysed to generate themes. A thematic pattern was generated incorporating the themes generated as an overarching finding of this study. The thematic pattern generated states: Pre-service teachers experienced joy, a sense of equality, free participation, caring and
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support during their participation in the SCC, which enhanced their ability to learn several competencies and to construct projects that could be useful for teaching and learning in their future teaching practice.
Based on these findings, I recommend that teacher educators create a learning-conducive environment in which pre-service teachers experience a sense of community and are deliberately and explicitly taught about the significance of creating a sense of community in classrooms. It is also recommended that teacher educators invest in harnessing the affordances of Scratch in their teaching to enhance pre-service teachers’ conceptual understanding, competencies for a fast-changing world, and their ability to create multimedia teaching and learning resources. In addition, initial teacher education programmes should prioritise modelling best teaching practices for pre-service teachers. More research involving pre-service teachers could also be conducted to gain a deeper understanding of how learning to code through Scratch contributes to developing competencies for a fast-changing world and, more specifically, creative thinking.