Making the Thinking Results of Programming Visible and Traceable with a Multi-layer Board Game

Learning programming is never easy since not only the knowledge but also the strategies to use the knowledge are necessary for programming. Although board games have been recognized as a promising approach to teaching computational thinking and programming, they are usually limited to turn-based design and lack the training of thinking a plan. On the other hand, learning with mini-languages and visual programming basically needs the use of computers and thus requires the ability to operate computers. We implemented the stored program concept and combined it with the idea of making thinking visible in a multi-layer board game to help to learn programming. Learners’ thinking results of programming can be reflected on this new kind of board game and synchronized with problems along with solutions. We conducted an experiment on the learning performance improvement by comparing it with a well-designed board game for learning computational thinking, and the results showed the effectiveness of using such a multi-layer board game.