Computational thinking for youth in practice

Lee, Irene; Martin, Fred; Denner, Jill; Coulter, Bob; Allan, Walter C.; Erickson, Jeri; Malyn-Smith, Joyce; Werner, Linda

doi:10.1145/1929887.1929902

Cited by 625 publications

(332 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

246

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Many have recently suggested ways of implementing computational thinking into the curriculum (Barr and Stephenson 2011, Webb and Rosson 2013, Brennan and Resnick 2012, Lee et al 2011, Selby 2012, Yadav et al 2011, Van Dyne and Braun 2014, Sengupta et al 2013). In our research we find teachers describe using a variety of activities that develop computational thinking skills in learners.…”

Section: Embedding Computational Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computing in the curriculum: Challenges and strategies from a teacher’s perspective

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Computing is being introduced into the curriculum in many countries. Teachers' perspectives enable us to discover what challenges this presents, and also the strategies teachers claim to be using successfully in teaching the subject across primary and secondary education. The study described in this paper was carried out in the UK in 2014 where teachers were preparing for the mandatory inclusion of Computing into the curriculum. A survey was conducted of over 300 teachers who were currently teaching Computing to elicit their perspectives on challenges and strategies. From the analysis of the data, extrinsic and intrinsic challenges were identified for both teachers and students. In addition, a variety of pedagogical strategies were recommended by teachers from their own practice. In categorising approaches taken by teaching to support students five key themes emerged: unplugged type activities, contextualisation of tasks, collaborative learning, developing computational thinking, and scaffolding programming tasks. Further investigation could support whether these strategies can alleviate the challenges of teaching and learning of Computing for students and teachers. In particular developing student resilience in Computing is seen as a challenge while not many strategies are suggested. The results of this study will be useful for teachers who are new to the teaching of Computing.

show abstract

Section: Embedding Computational Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computing in the curriculum: Challenges and strategies from a teacher’s perspective

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Key in all these definitions is the focus on students' complex problem-solving skills and dispositions (e.g. Barr & Stephenson, 2011;Lee et al, 2011;Sengupta et al, 2013) with the help of computing and computers (Grover & Pea, 2013;Wolz et al, 2011). Mishra and Yadav (2013) have argued that computational thinking goes beyond typical human-computer interactions within the school curriculum; instead, they argued that human creativity could be augmented by computational thinking, in particular with the use of automation and algorithmic thinking (Van Dyne & Braun, 2014).…”

Section: Computational Thinking: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the Computational Thinking Pedagogical Capabilities of School Teachers

Bower¹,

Wood²,

Lai³

et al. 2017

AJTE

153

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Computational thinking is not entirely embraced by all; critics suggest that the term is narrowing (Denning, 2009) or that computational thinking processes are widespread in other sciences (Hemmendinger, 2010). Among other contributions coming from educators, Lee et al (2011) suggest that we should start from practical examples of what we mean by computational thinking, and identify the terms "abstraction", "automation", and "analysis" as being particularly useful to understand how young pupils can deal with novel problems. Indeed, there is a huge interest in computational thinking as a means of explaining the thinking processes in informatics in school education (K-12); in USA computational thinking underlies the new curricular developments of the Computer Science Teacher Association in USA (CSTA) and Code.org; in England, computational thinking is at the core of a mandatory new Computing curriculum from age 5 until 16 (Department for Education, 2013); and Google have launched a teacher development MOOC purely around computational thinking (Google, 2016).…”

Section: Computational Thinkingmentioning

confidence: 99%

It’s Computational Thinking! Bebras Tasks in the Curriculum

Dagienė

Sentance

2016

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract.Bebras is an award-winning, international contest and challenge in informatics that has been running for 12 years in primary and secondary schools, with 50 countries now participating. From a single contest-focused annual event the Bebras developed to a multifunctional challenge; an activitiesbased educational community-building network has grown up where the development of Bebras tasks has taken a very significant role. Bebras tasks present a motivating way to introduce computer science concepts to students as well as developing computational thinking skills. Tasks are categorized in terms of the concepts being covered, and each task includes an explanation of how the task relates to informatics. In this paper we propose that Bebras tasks can be used within the school curriculum (whether it is called informatics, computer science, computing or information technology) to promote computational thinking and provide teaching materials. We give examples of Bebras tasks that could be incorporated into the curriculum, and make recommendations for schools wishing to develop children's computational thinking skills.Keywords: Bebras contest, computational thinking, computer science education, informatics curriculum, informatics education, task solving IntroductionThere is an increasing focus on computational thinking within the teaching of computer science, computing or informatics (from here on referred to as informatics) in school. Computational thinking was only recently popularised as a concept in 2006 by Wing (2006), although the original definition stems from Papert (1996). Wing claims that computational thinking is for everyone and involves "solving problems, designing systems and understanding human behaviour, by drawing on the concepts fundamental to computer science" (Wing, 2006, p. 34). Some new informatics curricula have a significant focus on computational thinking skills being developed, for example in England (Brown et al, 2014) and Poland (Syslo & Kwiatkowska, 2015). In the longstanding Bebras contest (Bebras, 2016), tasks are designed which demonstrate computer science principles whilst engaging students in problem-solving in a motivating way.Bebras is an informatics education community-building model and is designed to promote informatics learning in school by solving short concept-based tasks (Dagiene & Stupuriene, 2016). Tasks are the most important component of the Bebras model. Each Bebras task should include at least one informatics concept, attract children's attention by a story, picture or interactivity, be short (fits in a computer screen), and not require specific technical knowledge. Some countries use the Bebras to strengthen collaborative learning; for example, in Germany pupils solve Bebras tasks in pairs during a contest and discussions are allowed between the pairs.Alongside the initial goal of the Bebras project to motivate pupils to be more interested in informatics topics there is a strong intention to deepen algorithmic, logical and operational thinking and, more recently, c...

show abstract

Computational thinking for youth in practice

Cited by 625 publications

References 5 publications

Computing in the curriculum: Challenges and strategies from a teacher’s perspective

Computing in the curriculum: Challenges and strategies from a teacher’s perspective

Improving the Computational Thinking Pedagogical Capabilities of School Teachers

It’s Computational Thinking! Bebras Tasks in the Curriculum

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About