Introducing Programming Concepts Through the Bebras Tasks in the Primary Education
Lina Vinikienė, Valentina Dagienė, Gabrielė Stupurienė · 2023
Worldwide, the Bebras challenge on informatics and computational thinking (CT) includes formal and non-formal informatics/computer science (CS)/computing educational activities for primary and secondary school students. The development of the Bebras tasks is a complex process, which involves CS education communities from over 70 countries. The crucial point of the Bebras challenge is so-called short tasks based on CS concepts and aimed at motivating students to learn the basics of CS. In addition to the introduction of CS concepts, the Bebras tasks have to be attractive, engaging and playful and make sense for learners. Every year approximately 300 new tasks are developed by the participating countries (Bebras members). By categorizing tasks, the majority of the proposed tasks fall under an algorithms and programming category. Recently, many countries started to implement CT in their primary school curricula and at the same time use Bebras tasks to motivate students to learn CS topics. This paper explores the latest research related to Bebras tasks and analyses examples of tasks for teaching programming concepts in primary school classrooms.