Longitudinal approach for introducing programming in italian primary school

Computational Thinking (CT) and related concepts, as programming and algorithmic thinking, have been recently advocated as abilities that are as fundamental as numeracy and literacy, and many countries all over the world are introducing programming activities in education. In Italy, even if the introduction of CT and programming in schools is on the pipeline of policy makers, they have not yet been included in the curriculum guidelines. Consequently, there is a strong case for analyzing how programming can be integrated at early stages into the Italian compulsory education. Starting from the constructivist tradition, a study spanning over several school years has been organized aiming at defining and testing a programming learning path for primary schools. The learning path takes into account children's interests, stimulating their passions and creativity. Students are engaged on projects that are meaningful for them, while teachers take advantage of the situations that spontaneously arise to guide students' attention on specific computational concepts. The learning path is being iteratively refined through a field experiment involving a primary school over a four year period. The study aims to the following questions: o Under which conditions can age-appropriate programming activities, allowing for individual differences in learning styles and approaches, work in primary school? o Which indications can the work performed provide to the sustainability of the programming activities when the researchers' support will come to an end? o Which elements of the study can provide suggestions for a wider introduction of programming in primary schools? Since the study is currently in its third year, this paper addresses the first two research question, while only some initial considerations are provided for the third one.