Teachers’ understanding of technical terms in a Computational Thinking curriculum

ABSTRACT Teachers new to computing who are not familiar with technical “jargon” can feel like they have landed in a foreign world, making them reluctant to take on the subject, and potentially leading to misconceptions and misunderstandings in the classroom. The diversity of technical words, metaphors, and phrases in different contexts can make their meanings confusing, ambiguous or misunderstood for the diverse user groups in computing education. Therefore, understanding the nature of the commonly claimed difficulties and confusion caused by computer jargon among teachers becomes important for finding ways to address this issue. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study conducted to understand the nature of teachers’ understanding of computational terms (jargon) related to Computational Thinking concepts, and how a relevant professional development intervention can help to resolve issues related to them. The results indicate that the nature of the teachers’ understanding of computational terms can be either that the computational meaning is not known, that the computational context is unclear, or their applicability is unclear. Concerns about teachers finding computer jargon difficult to understand can be because the computational context in which they are applied makes them difficult for teachers to understand, rather than not knowing their meanings in the first place. Moreover, appropriate support can enable teachers to learn the techniques and skills that the terminology refers to.