Computational Thinking
is everywhere
We hope we can show you the value of the concepts and dispositions of Computational Thinking. It’s more than just Computer Science. It’s a life skill that builds confidence and problem-solving skills in students. It creates opportunities to build communication skills & teamwork. It requires patience, logic, persistence, and the ability to deal with ambiguity while encouraging creative expression and will lead to a greater understanding of how the technology we use makes decisions and interacts with humans.
Computational Thinking is the campfire that we can all sit around to build transferrable life skills and concepts for 21st Century learners
What is computational thinking?
Watch the intro video. (5.5 minutes) View the poster. (1-2 minutes)
It's a problem-solving method that involves tinkering, creating, debugging, persevering, & collaborating using logic and skills that are used by computer scientists to break down and explain human problems to be solved together with computers.
Explore the Examples
Choose a lesson that relates to something you teach to see how to apply computational thinking and build 21st century skills for your students.
Computational Thinking Levels of Complexity
(DRAFT)
| Level | Skills | Practices |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1: Basics | decomposition, algorithms, debugging | persistence, collaboration, reflection |
| Level 2: Intermediate | pattern recognition, data collection, predict and analyze | creating, tinkering, inquiry | Level 3: Comprehensive | abstraction, systems thinking (models to understand systems), data analysis | tolerance of ambiguity, iterative design process, consideration of any ethics/accessibility/ impact |
Teacher Performance Levels of Complexity
Level 1: I can do the skill as a learner
Level 2: I can teach CT skills
Level 3: I can modify or create a lesson that teaches it in the context of content instruction
Many organizations internationally are contributing to a body of work to support computational thinking.
Here are some excellent ones
K12 CS Framework guide to computational thinking
Digital Promise - integrated computational thinking
Digital Promise - microcredentials
Public School 86 in the Bronx in collaboration with Cornell Tech
Australia Department of Education
New Zealand CS Unplugged
UK Barefoot Computing
Talladega County School District in Alabama has done a great job of creating a CT Pathway for their district K-12 across 5 competencies. This might be helpful as we think about levels for student growth (although not necessarily teacher growth as those feel like different levels): https://sites.google.com/tcboe.org/tcboe-ct/computational-thinking-pathways
Dr. Aman Yadav's group at Michigan State has done some work on computational thinking in the humanities : https://projects.ctintegration.org/
University of Maryland STIGCT project to integrate computational thinking into K9 science
Canon labs CT reading list and turtle game boards https://www.canonlab.org/creative