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Teaching and learning mathematics in primary school through Scratch

Conference Paper · June 2018

DOI: 10.21125/edulearn.2018.1359

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 Teaching and learning mathematics in primary school through
Scratch
Christer Sjöberg1, Jalal Nouri2, Rosmarie Sjöberg3, Eva Norén4 & Lechen
Zhang5
1,3
Strandskolan, Tyresö (SWEDEN)
2,4,5
Stockholm University (SWEDEN)

Abstract
Programming education is a hot topic in many countries around the world. Also in Sweden this topic
has received a lot of attention lately due to formal introduction of programming curriculum as of 2018.
Mathematics is one of the subjects that is most affected by the curriculum changes as the government
in Sweden has decided that teachers of mathematics are to teach programming in compulsory school
in order to support problem-solving in mathematics. Albeit there are some previous research
investigating questions related to how programming can enhance mathematics education, for instance
in form of the seminal work of Papert through the LOGO language, more research is required that
scrutinize how new visual block programming language such as Scratch can be used for mathematical
learning. It is against such a background we in this paper report on how Scratch has been used in
primary school for two years to teach mathematics. We will present four different projects that a
teacher has planned and conducted with 68 students that target four different areas of mathematics.
As such we describe the didactical strategies that was employed to help students achieve the learning
goals, and the associated challenges. We hope that the presentation can be helpful for other teachers
and researchers interested in using visual block programming languages for teaching and learning
mathematics.

Keywords: programming, mathematics, scratch, coding, computational thinking

1 INTRODUCTION
It is widely acknowledged that computer programming needs to be introduced to
young learners [1-2] as a means to develop their computational thinking skills [3-4].
Therefore, many countries have updated their K-12 curriculum to embrace
programming. However, besides the increasing interest of studying programming for
its own sake, it is might also be worth to investigate programming’s effect on learning
other subjects [5]. For example, the new Swedish curriculum for primary school
explicitly mentions programming within the frame of the subject of mathematics. As a
matter of fact, educational researchers started investigating how computer
programming can be used to foster mathematics learning already in the 1960s [6-7].
In fact, mathematical thinking is closely related to computational thinking because
“solving a mathematical problem is a process of construction that requires an analytic
problem-solving perspective, which is unique and fundamental to computer
programming” [11]. Since Seymour Papert created the LOGO programming language
in the 1960s, studies were conducted using LOGO to facilitate the learning of, for
instance, numerical magnitude and length estimation [11-13].
As the programming tools evolves through time, more programming languages like
LOGO are made available for young learners, such as Scratch, Blockly, AppInventor,
etc. The design of Scratch, by MIT Media Lab, is especially intended for
programmers younger than 16. The “low floor, high ceilings and wide walls” makes
Scratch a popular programming environment [14]. Some previous studies have
indicated the potential of Scratch in facilitating mathematics education. The review of
[7] showed that during the process of developing CT skills through programming,
pupils incidentally or intentionally learned mathematics such as numbers, operation,
algebra, functions etc. Another aspect of choosing Scratch is that:
“The focus of Scratch is on making multimedia products, and sharing them in the large
and active online community hosted by the project website. This is intended to enable and
develop children’s creativity, but also to introduce them to programming, in a fun way” [8,
p. 2]
In Scratch, the program is written by fitting “blocks” together. Thus, the programming
language is a visual language [8]. Scratch can also be used to design games, games
that can develop young students’ mathematical skills and concepts [9].

It is against such a background we in this paper report on how Scratch has been
used in primary school for two years to teach mathematics. We will present four
different projects that a teacher has planned and conducted with 68 students that
target four different areas of mathematics. The guiding research question has been:
What didactical strategies are teachers using to integrate programming into
mathematics education?

2 METHODOLOGY
Two of the authors, teachers in primary school, started two years ago to work with
programming in several classes at their school. They had very limited personal
experience of programming but decided that they would try to learn with their
students by choosing Scratch as programming tool.
In this article, we describe how the work has progressed to today. We describe
the didactic choices they made, how they gradually discovered new features in
Scratch that connect to the existing teaching of mathematics, and the results
achieved from the two years of work. Four areas of mathematics have been worked
with, namely:
• Multiplication
• The Clock (expressing time)
• Smart mental calculation
• Conversion between temperature scales
2.1 Participants: students and teachers
The teacher has worked with three classes with about 25 students in each. Because
some students have left the school, and some have been added during the period,
we have chosen to look at the results of the students that have been working with all
four projects, which are 68 students.
The participating teachers are Christer Sjöberg, teacher of mathematics, and
Rosmarie Sjöberg, ICT manager at Strandskolan. Christer Sjöberg has performed
the concrete work with students while Rosmarie Sjöberg has attended parts of the
planning, monitoring and analysis.
 The students had some minor experiences with Scratch through a former teacher
at the end of year 3 and were familiar with the program when they started in year 4 in
August 2016. The project described is carried out from September 2016 to April
2018.

3 RESULTS
In the following, four projects will be presented. Each project has started with that
students have been given an example of a simple code to start from which have
been first explored and discussed collectively with the support of the teacher and
through the use of a projector on a white board [8]. After that, students have been
given the instruction to reproduce the code with personal additions. Complexity
increased with time. In the beginning the students received instructions to create and
change graphics, such as switching to an own background. Gradually, whole
programs were changed and improved.

3.1 Project 1: Multiplication

Regarding number, a goal for school year 4-6 is to be able to use “central methods
for calculations with natural numbers /…/, main statement and calculations using
written methods and calculator. And how methods can be used in different situations”
[10, p. 57]. Learning the multiplication tables in various ways is part of this. The task
given to the students early in year 4, was to reproduce code and make additional
tests of other numbers in the multiplication tables. As both the teachers and the
students were quite unfamiliar with programming, this first project was to make a
fairly simple program with a conditional statement. The code that the students could
work with looked like this:

Figure 1. Scratch code for multiplication

Pretty soon students asked for more features because they thought that the program
did not meet the requirements for a good program to train multiplication. They
suggested for example that the program should specify the number of correct
answers and that a timer was added in order to make the game more fun and
challenging. In order to address that wish, we were forced to introduce, explore and
learn the variable concept together. As a result, a new template was constructed that
integrated the variable concept.
In the template, we have also added the feature "costumes" that allows the sprite to
change the look using the previously set conditions, i.e. look happy when a right
answer is provided (see code and outcome in figure 2).
 Figure 2. An advanced version of the game for multiplication
A reflection after the first project was that students learned to program incredibly
quickly and helped each other when they encountered problems and challenges.
Working with multiplication tables was something the teachers would have done with
or without programming, but this this was really shown to be just another engaging
way to do it.
Another reflection was that many students identified the problems that needed to
be solved (for instance the above example of scoring) and the programming activities
created the opportunities to practically discover how programming can be used as a
tool to solve problems and improve students’ digital literacy.

3.2 Project 2: The clock

Being able to express and measure time is a central content of the curriculum in
mathematics for grades 4-6. In year 4 many students are still unsure of how to
express time, especially in analog ways. Therefore, in this project, students explored
digital and analogue clocks through programming.
The activities started with that students received a template as in the previous
project. However, in this project students were given different templates based on
their prior knowledge of the clock. Those that were confident in reading the clock
received more the more challenging task to make applications where time was
specified using Roman numerals or with symbols of a 12-hour clock (i.e. am and pm).
In the programmed applications the students had to work with the following:
• Figure out the time difference between two analogue time intervals
• Figure out the time difference between two digital time intervals
• Switch between analogue and digital time formats
• Figure out the time difference between two time intervals with Roman
numerals
• Enter the time with 12-hour time format
In this project, we tested the Scratch concept messaging. We used the concept to
replace clock-faces and to build applications that used multiple clock faces after each
other. The template included two clock faces, but the students were encouraged to
implement more.
As each clock-face corresponds to a sprite the students needed to program the
code of each of these. Below is the code for the sprites and an example of how it
looks for the user when the program starts.

Figure 3. A student application to express time

Although programming and training of the clock were in the focus, it turned out that
something else perhaps was the biggest win of this project, namely the concrete
work with copyright.
As these particular students have the habit to publish much of their material on a
class blog, they have learned to be careful what pictures they use and it proved very
difficult to find clock-faces that they were allowed to download and add to their
applications. The students solved this by drawing own clock-faces (see figure 3) on
paper that were later scanned and digitalized for all to access and use. By doing this,
the students were able to put out programs on the blog without violating copyright. A
collective discussion was also done about if the students wanted others to be able to
use the pictures. In the end, all material on the blog was labelled with a Creative
Commons license. This is an example of how a programming activity within the
subject of mathematics can entail enhancement of general digital competences.

3.3 Project 3: Mental arithmetic

A curricular goal already in school year 3 was to be able to do mental calculations.
This ability is supposed to be developed through the school years. When the
students have gained knowledge about multiplication and division tables, it is
important to make use of the knowledge in other contexts [10, p. 57]. The following
project was called "mental arithmetic," and it can entail being able to take the step
from figuring out 3 · 8 = 24 to understand the reverse 24/8 = 3 followed by the
challenge to figure out 24 000/8 = 3 000.
Templates were created for a number of mental arithmetic methods and the
students were divided into groups (4-5 students in each group). Each group was
responsible for a mental calculation method and the task was to make a program in
Scratch. Everything was posted on the class blog so students could learn and
practice using the other groups programs.
In the following we present an example of the method to calculate the division of
large numbers. The following code was provided to the students as a template:

Figure 4. A template for mental calculation of large number division

Although this type of activity helps the students to understand numbers that can be
divided easily, a disadvantage of the program as it appears in the template may be
that it is always the same divisions and the same order is that the students quickly
learn the answers by heart.
In order to solve this challenge, some students started to reflect upon and talk
about how to construct a more open program that randomize numbers that can be
evenly divided, which from our perspective is a productive mathematical reflection
(problem-solving activity). With the support of the teacher and talented parents, a
new template was produced (see figure 5).
 Figure 5. A program for mental calculation that randomize numbers for the division

Most students worked with the first template, but those that worked with the later got
an opportunity to work with and create an understanding of random numbers and a
more advanced problem-solving approach. This is a good example of how Scratch
support students to work individually on different levels.

3.4 Project 4: Temperature conversion

By the end of school year 6 students should be able to use scale in every-day
situations [9. p. 58]. The theme of this fourth project was then decided to be on
conversion between different temperature scales. As before, students were given
different templates in Scratch and they were free to choose any of the following
conversions (or combinations of):
• Celsius to Fahrenheit
• Fahrenheit to Celsius
• Celsius to Kelvin
• Kelvin to Celsius
The teacher chose not to have students convert between Fahrenheit and Celsius,
because it is rarely useful in Sweden. The different calculation methods were
collectively discussed before the programming activity. The different templates
looked pretty much the same for the four different programs. In the following we
present the program which convert Celsius to Fahrenheit.
 Figure 6. A scratch program for converting Celsius to Fahrenheit
Something that very early caught many students' interest was that it can not actually
be colder than -237 ℃. There we took advantage of and created a conditional
statement that took into account if you accidentally enter a temperature lower than -
237 ℃. For those students who were advanced in their programming skills this
program was not challenging enough. Therefore, those students were given the
instruction to change the background depending on the chosen temperature (for
example a high temperature generates a desert background and a low temperature a
winter landscape).

4 DISCUSSION
In the four programming projects described in this paper, the mathematical content
could have been elaborated on in other ways. The content, multiplication, expressing
time, scale and arithmetic computations are typical curricular objectives, with goals
for students this age, described in the national curriculum. We have described the
didactical strategies that the teachers employed in the four projects to help students
achieve the learning goals, and the associated challenges. The didactical strategies
are closely linked to the possibilities of Scratch, like the possibility to reproduce code.
According to the teachers involved in the projects, this strategy makes different
students work on different levels. Some students copy code; others develop their
own. This can be seen as a challenge for the teachers, to choose activities on
different levels. Up until today the starting points for the students have mostly been
the same in, at least these four the projects, but in the second project, on expressing
time, the students were given different templates. A future challenge is also to be
able to assess the programming skills and digital literacy as well as the mathematical
skills the students are developing.

Scratch’s visual language for programming is in earlier studies said to support young
students to develop programming skills. One of the main advantages is the
enjoyability, in contrast to frustration and anxiety [8]. The four projects presented in
this paper have shown the same. Not just to programme, but also an enjoyable and
engaging way to exercise multiplication, for example. The strategy here was to
design a game. This is common when using Scratch, in this paper the game were
constructed to develop young students’ multiplication skills and concepts [9]. Another
gain with the programming activities was that students beside learning more about
how to express time, also learned to be careful with how to handle copy right.

Another didactical strategy used, consciously or unconsciously, is that students can

help each other when they encounter problems and challenges. In the third project,
there was also a “talented parent” involved. It seems like collaborative work of
various kinds occur in the programming situations themselves. The Scratch blog
appears to encourage students to do their own findings. To use the blog can be seen
as one more didactical strategy.

We believe that the presentation of the four projects and the didactical strategies
chosen by the teachers can be helpful for other teachers and researchers interested
in using visual block programming languages for teaching and learning mathematics.

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