Transforming "Hard and Boring" into "Accessible and Exciting"

Many kids describe their perception of programming to be “hard and boring.” Computational Thinking, including programming, is considered by many to be an important skill for the 21 century workforce. However, in order for kids to get interested in Computational Thinking is it essential to understand why kids perceive programming to be hard, i.e., to understand cognitive challenges, and why kids perceive programming to be boring, i.e., to understand affective challenges. Over the last 20 years our Computer Science education research creating Computational Thinking tools such as AgentSheets and AgentCubes, developing curricula and providing teacher professional development systematically explored what we call the Cognitive/Affective Challenges space. We have not only found strategies to gradually move from “hard and boring” towards “accessible and exciting” but in the process also developed research instruments to computationally assess cognitive as well as affective challenges. This paper outlines the Cognitive/Affective Challenges space, briefly describes Computational Thinking Pattern analysis as cognitive instrument, and illustrates Retention of Flow as affective instrument to assess motivation.