Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
THINKING SKILLS AND CREATIVITY, ss.1, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
Unplugged computational thinking activities offer a cost-effective and accessible method for teaching computational thinking skills without relying on computers. These activities use hands-on, interactive approaches, such as puzzles, games, storytelling, and role-playing, to introduce critical computational concepts like abstraction, algorithms, decomposition, and pattern recognition. This study explores the integration of such activities into elementary social studies education. An 8-week program with 28 pre-service teachers was conducted, including hands-on activities and lesson plan development. At the end of the implementation, pre-service teachers were asked to prepare lesson plans integrating unplugged computational thinking (CT) into social studies lessons, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 volunteer pre-service teachers. The findings from the lesson plans demonstrated that the pre-service teachers successfully integrated unplugged CT into social studies lessons. The data obtained from the semi-structured interviews revealed that these activities promoted problem-solving, critical thinking, and deeper engagement with social studies content. This study contributes to the limited research on computational thinking in social studies education by providing a replicable framework for interdisciplinary practices and encouraging educators to integrate computational thinking into social studies to enrich students' overall learning experiences.