About

James Minogue is an Associate Professor in the Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences at North Carolina State University. He teaches elementary science methods courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. His research focuses on understanding haptic (touch) perception and cognition within teaching and learning contexts, exploring the efficacy of game-based learning environments in elementary science education, and examining how to structure elementary teachers’ and students’ conceptual encounters with invisible science phenomena. Minogue has eight years of experience teaching public school science and has been developing and teaching elementary science methods courses at the college level since fall 2005. His scholarly work includes investigating innovative educational technologies such as haptic feedback and virtual simulations to enhance science understanding, as well as studying the impact of game-based learning on student engagement and learning in science education.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Human–computer interaction
• Machine Learning
• Data science
• Simulation
• Physics
• Pedagogy
• Multimedia
• Mathematics education
• Psychology
• Mechanics

Selected publications

• Bridging Computational Thinking, Science, and Storytelling: Reflections on an Interdisciplinary Learning Approach

  2026-02-13

  articleOpen access

  Integrating computational thinking (CT) into early K-12 education is increasingly recognized as essential for preparing students to navigate a technology-driven world. Digital storytelling, with its capacity to combine narrative expression with programming, offers a promising interdisciplinary strategy for promoting CT. This experience report presents a narrative-centered learning environment that integrates digital storytelling, block-based programming, and hands-on maker activities to foster CT and interdisciplinary learning in upper elementary classrooms. Grounded in a problem-based storyline, the environment engages students in solving real-world-inspired challenges through physical science experimentation and interactive narrative creation. We describe a multi-week classroom implementation with fourth- and fifth-grade students and analyze survey responses and programming artifacts from 41 participants to explore how CT concepts and practices, including sequencing, conditionals, and debugging, emerged in their work. While students demonstrated statistically significant gains in CT, they also encountered challenges related to narrative coherence, science alignment, and conditional logic. We reflect on what did and did not work, offering design insights for educators and designers adopting interdisciplinary, story-driven approaches to computing education.

  PublisherDOI

• Promoting Multidisciplinary Digital Learning: A Design-Based Approach to Creating Teacher and Student Support Materials

  2024-01-01

  article

  Digital learning environments are used frequently in K-12 classrooms. Such use can require skillful orchestration as teachers need to understand the affordances of the learning environment, sequence of activities, and when and how to intervene with students. Using a digital learning environment in a multidisciplinary classroom context makes the design of support materials for teachers and students even more essential. To design for effective teacher orchestration in the classroom, we created a comprehensive set of materials for our multidisciplinary digital learning environment. We employ the design-based intervention research framework to trace the contextual and practical iterations these materials underwent. Additionally, we provide next steps for our work and considerations for the broader community.

  PublisherDOI

• Which Way to Go: Exploring Force Arrow Placement

  The Physics Teacher · 2024-01-01

  article

  Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter Facebook Reddit LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Reprints and Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Madeline J. Fitzgerald, David Borland, James Minogue, Emily Brunsen, Tabitha C. Peck; Which Way to Go: Exploring Force Arrow Placement. Phys. Teach. 1 January 2024; 62 (1): 24–28. https://doi.org/10.1119/5.0093063 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAmerican Association of Physics TeachersThe Physics Teacher Search Advanced Search |Citation Search

  PublisherDOI

• Leveraging Large Language Models for Automated Assessment of Elementary Students' Block-Based Narrative Programs

  2024-12-02

  article

  Recent years have seen increasing awareness of the need to engage young learners in computational thinking (CT). Integrating digital storytelling, where students create short narratives, and CT offers significant potential for promoting interdisciplinary learning for students; however, it is critical to provide both teachers and students with automated support. A promising approach for enabling support is to leverage advances in Large Language Models (LLMs), which have demonstrated considerable potential for assessing both programming and natural language artifacts. In this work, we investigate the capabilities of LLMs to automatically assess student-created block-based programs developed using a narrative-centered learning environment that engages upper elementary students (ages 9 to 11) in learning CT and physical science through the creation of interactive science narratives. Using the narrative programs created by 28 students, we explore the efficacy of LLMs to assess the programs across two dimensions.

  PublisherDOI

• Novice Elementary Teachers’ Science Teaching: Instructional Planning and Discourse

  Journal of Science Teacher Education · 2024-07-22 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Fostering Interdisciplinary Learning for Elementary Students Through Developing Interactive Digital Stories

  Lecture notes in computer science · 2023-01-01 · 3 citations

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Multimodal CS Education Using a Scaffolded CSCL Environment

  2023-06-29

  article

  There is a growing need for 21st-century workers to be digitally literate and to possess computational thinking and collaborative problem-solving skills. Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) focused on computational thinking can guide students toward the co-development of these skills. In this work, we present our approach to integrating virtual and physical learning modalities into InfuseCS, a CSCL environment. InfuseCS uses problem-based learning scenarios to situate upper elementary school students (ages 8 to 11) in a CSCL setting to foster their computational thinking and science knowledge construction as they collaborate to create digital narratives.

  PublisherDOI

• Integrating Storytelling and Making: A Case Study in Elementary School

  Lecture notes in computer science · 2023-01-01 · 2 citations

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Supporting Upper Elementary Students in Multidisciplinary Block-Based Narrative Programming

  2022-03-01

  articleOpen access

  Digital storytelling, which combines traditional storytelling with digital tools, has seen growing popularity as a means of creating motivating problem-solving activities in K-12 education. Though an attractive potential solution to integrating language arts skills across topic areas such as computational thinking and science, better understanding of how to structure and support these activities is needed to increase adoption by teachers. Building on prior research on block-based programming for interactive storytelling, we present initial results from a study of 28 narrative programs created by upper elementary students that were collected in both classroom and extracurricular contexts. The narrative programs are evaluated across multiple dimensions to better understand the types of narrative programs being created by the students, characteristics of the students who created the narratives, and what types of support could most benefit the students in their narrative program construction. In addition to analyzing the student-created narrative programs, we also provide recommendations for promising system-generated and instructor-led supports.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Teacher Perspectives on a Narrative-Centered Learning Environment to Promote Computationally-Rich Science Learning through Digital Storytelling

  2021-03-29 · 1 citations

  article
  Publisher

Recent grants

• Pre-service Educators Reimagining Core Experiences in Physics Teaching

  NSF · $733k · 2018–2023

• ASPECT: Advancing Science Performance with Emerging Computer Technologies

  NSF · $450k · 2013–2017

Frequent coauthors

• Eric Wiebe

  14 shared

• M. Gail Jones

  North Carolina State University

  13 shared

• Bradford Mott

  13 shared

• Cathy Ringstaff

  Wested

  12 shared

• Aleata Hubbard Cheuoua

  Wested

  12 shared

• Kevin Oliver

  12 shared

• Andy Smith

  12 shared

• David Borland

  11 shared