Japanese Elementary Schools' Playful Programming Curriculum Considerations: Readiness, Limitations and Teacher Training

Japan's elementary school educators are facing the difficult task of teaching computer programming education and computational thinking in a playful way which affords students' time to acquire new knowledge while discovering new technology. Japan as a nation has constantly ranked lower than other developed nations in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) literacy. The recent introduction of programming education has created an additional task for educators to learn about programming in order to teach it. Programming education was introduced in April 2020, and little research has been done to measure the knowledge gap of educators. In March 2020, a month before the implementation of programming instruction in Japanese schools, 22 elementary schools were visited to access readiness and to distribute an online survey. The surveys and informal interviews revealed the unpreparedness of educators for the task of teaching programming and limited programming material in the approved textbooks. This research is intended to inform stakeholders in order to improve the fundamental training of in-service and pre-service educators so they can have the necessary knowledge and confidence to teach programming in a fun and playful manner to their students.