Tangible Flowchart Blocks for Fostering Logical Thinking in Visually Impaired Learners

Logical thinking is an essential skill needed to gain expertise in programming. Typically logical thinking is learned using a flowchart, which is a step by step process to reach a particular solution. Because of the visual constraint, teaching logical thinking to visually impaired (VI) students becomes challenging. For VI students‘ concrete experience with real objects is necessary for creating memory. For VI students haptic learning can be facilitated by designing flowchart blocks with appropriate feedback. All the design considerations are made considering the interaction style or challenges for VI students. We focus on developing tangible flowchart blocks to foster logical thinking in VI students. Learning activities were designed using contextual problems where VI students interact with the blocks to form a step-by-step solution. In this paper, we present findings from a pilot study and interviews conducted with three participants for early validation and feedback for the scope of improvement of our product.