Marisa Wolsky

Independent Researcher · Children's Media

This article describes a study designed to investigate the promise of resources that support the development of computational thinking (CT) in preschool children. This study was the culmination of a collaborative research process between researchers and media developers of a home-based intervention that included media and hands-on activities create...

This chapter provides an overview of how digital media can be leveraged to support the exploration of developmentally appropriate computational thinking (CT) skills for preschoolers. These skills, named CT Core Ideas in the project team's framework, support children's abilities to tackle problems or goals using systematic, computational strategies....

GBH (a leading producer of educational STEM media) and EDC (experts in how technology can enhance teaching and learning) are collaborating with libraries and rural communities on an NSF-funded project that is exploring how to best use the unique affordances of digital media, mobile technology, and virtual and in-person library experiences to suppor...

Our research team prioritizes sharing our findings with teachers. Thus, published by Edutopia (https://www.edutopia.org/article/using-stories-support-computational-thinking/), this article describes our computational thinking (CT) research and presents strategies that teachers can use to engage children in CT experiences. CT is a creative way of th...

The field is still working on how to introduce computational thinking (CT) as a developmentally appropriate practice for young children, including defining some of the CT skills that can be used by young children. To address this need, our team of researchers and media developers partnered to define the scope of what should be taught to young child...

Our team of researchers and public media content developers worked in collaboration with teachers and children on the National Science Foundation-funded project Integrating Computational Thinking (CT) into Mathematics Instruction in Rural and Urban Preschools. The project investigated the CT teaching and learning process through the research and de...

This chapter describes two informal engineering projects-Engineer Your Life and Design Squad-that are designed to transform the image of engineering. Produced by WGBH, both are examples of projects informed by research that aim to make a difference in the exposure and experience of students through media and iterative evaluation. Funded by NSF, Eng...

Roughly 80% of a child's time (waking hours) is spent in out-of-school settings. Therefore, as we consider increasing pre-college students' awareness of engineering, along with the need to broaden diverse participation in engineering and promote a more engineering-literate populous, it is important to not only consider how children learn about engi...

Roughly 81.5% of a child's time (waking hours) is spent in out-of-school settings. Therefore, as we consider increasing pre-college students' awareness of engineering, along with the need to broaden diverse participation in engineering and promote a more engineering-literate populous, it is important to not only consider how children learn about en...

We submit that there is currently an urgent need to educate the public about engineering and attract talented people to the profession. Further, we argue that such efforts are most effective when they reach young children, and that popular media most be employed to have the desired national impact. These ideas have motivated a major new effort whos...