Work in progress: Teaching computational thinking in middle and high school

Abstract

Computational thinking (CT) does not require profound knowledge of computer science (CS). Vice versa, it helps students organize and build up new knowledge around the core CS concepts they encounter on the daily basis. Furthermore, CT provides a set of problem-solving skills and enhances analytical abilities that are crucial for the young generation to succeed in modern world pervaded with technology. Teaching the principles of computing to students with non-computing tracks of study provides them with a competitive advantage and breaks down stereotypes around CS. Our approach is to introduce a topic related to world issues and students' interests while concealing its relation to CS until students' interest and attention are captured. The approach takes advantage of pattern-matching abilities that are naturally wired in our brain to improve understanding and make the obtained knowledge persist in memory. The paper discusses some of the modules developed as part of the Inspire-CT project that can be delivered in one or part of a class period at high school or middle school.

Computational Thinking in Secondary Education: Where does it fit? A systematic literary review

“…Towhidnejad et al [154,184] present some activities they have developed to introduce sixth to 12th grade students to CT concepts and "entice" them into recognising that they can understand computing and engineering topics. One way in which they do this is through introducing CT into topics which are not related to computing such as Chemistry and Physics.…”

“…In the former they discussed the Fukishima reactor failure and covered Fault Tree Analysis. In the latter paper [184], they discuss music recording with concepts such as sampling rate and memory devices. Another way which they have taught CT is through games and they describe how they used Minecraft to teach topics such as Finite State Machines and Shift Registers.…”

Reflecting on Computational Thinking Studies for High School Education

“…Other than using the available tools, some studies attempted to create new programming-based teaching tools [25]- [30], and game-based tools [31]- [33]. [22], [14], [17], [15], [16], [34], [18], [19], [20], [35], [36], [23], [37], [21], [24] 15 Module [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], In addition to teaching CT in regular classrooms, researchers have introduced afterschool activities, which called 'informal program' in this study, as an alternative to disseminate CT skills. Recently, the publication trend of studies related to infusing CT through the informal program has increased.…”

“…As [12] point out, educators should not only promote coding skills and provide knowledge, but also collaboration and teamwork skills to deal with difficult problems which are too hard to be solved individually. [52], [38], [39], [41], [22], [14], [15], [42], [18], [44], [17], [45], [19], [20], [36], [46], [23], [37], [50], [47], [21], [48], [49], [51], [24] 25 b [53], [57], [58], [59], [60], [61], [64], [55], [56], [66], [67] 11 Abstraction a [71], [22], [15], [42], [18], [44], [17], [19], [34], [46], [49], [51]…”

Solving a Classical Optimization ProblemUsing GAMS Optimizer Package: Economic Dispatch ProblemImplementation

“…To improve the computation abilities in undergraduate students, it is strictly necessary that the professors can find the best way to teach computational thinking [30], [31], [32]. A basic definition of computational thinking would be formulating things with enough clarity, and in a systematic enough way, that one can tell a computer how to do them.…”