The Present and Future of Computational Thinking

Owen Astrachan
Computer Science
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708
(919) 660-6522
ola@cs.duke.edu
Susanne Hambrusch
Computer Science
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN 47906
765-494-1831
seh@cs.purdue.edu
Joan Peckham
(Moderator)
NSF
Arlington, VA 22230
(703) 292-734
jpeckham@nsf.gov
Amber Settle
Computing
DePaul University
Chicago, IL 60604
(312) 362-5324
asettle@cdm.depaul.edu




Categories and Subject Descriptors
K3.2 [Computing Milieux]: Computers and Education -
Computer and Information Science Education
General Terms
Design, Experimentation.
Keywords
Computational Thinking, Curriculum, Education.
1. Summary
Intellectual constructs and tools that are widely used to solve the
problems of society have been woven into educational programs.
For example, the three R’s (reading, ‘riting & ‘rithmetic) are core
to a strong fundamental education, and practitioners and
researchers routinely apply these tools to their daily work.
Computing has become an essential and pervasive problem-
solving toolset. This development has fostered much discussion
about the role of computing in a modern education, the
broadening nature of computing majors and concentrations and
their place in post-secondary institutions, for example, [6,7].
Computer science educators recognize the importance of
improving information technology (IT) skills and fluency, and a
number of studies have developed guidelines on how to do this
[3,4]. However, computer science has analytical concepts and
tools that offer educational benefits beyond simple IT fluency.
Computational thinking was introduced [9] as a continuation of
earlier discussions on the nature of computing (e.g. [5]). Similar
discussions and the same terminology were introduced
independently in a series of workshops and reports [2]. This has
helped the computing community to strengthen description and
definition of the problem solving skills that computing brings to
society, through education, outreach, and research.
Over the past few years, computational thinking concepts have
served as a basis for several projects, workshops and efforts aimed
at more precise, and at the same time, deeper and wider
interpretation of computing. This includes attention to K-12
curricula, general education at colleges and universities, as well as
interdisciplinary research and technology transfer.
This panel will outline a sampling of the activities and projects
that have begun to define and address computational thinking. The
moderator will start with an outline of national computational
thinking activities and developments. The panelists will talk
about their individual projects and activities, and outline their
visions for future developments in the computing and broader
educational communities around computational thinking. The
session will then be opened for discussion; the audience will be
encouraged to ask questions and contribute ideas for the
development of computational thinking across its many
dimensions.
2. Owen Astrachan
We are working in several areas to incorporate computational
thinking into our core courses for majors, into new courses for
non-majors, and as part of re-imagining introductory courses
before college, e.g., at the high school level. Some of our work
mirrors approaches seen at other institutions (for example, [8])
where introductory courses are changing to match the needs of
students in other disciplines who are using computation and
programming. We have developed interdisciplinary minors in
Computational Biology and Computational Economics, but in
some ways these represent low-hanging fruit since we have
faculty active in these areas and developing the programs and
courses naturally reflect their interests as well as those of the
students enrolling in these programs. We are also changing the
approach we use in our CS2 course so that programming is
presented as a tool used to explore areas from computer science,
other sciences, and society [1]. Programming is still of great
importance in this course, but students are using the scientific
method where appropriate and focusing on solving and
understanding problem-domains in many areas rather than
understanding inheritance. Although the early work exhorting the
community to “think computationally” [2,9] specifically talks
about skills and processes that go beyond and transcend
programming, these articles do specifically ask that we develop
approaches to explaining how to “think like a computer scientist”.
We have developed a course for majors, now being introduced to
non-majors, that takes a different approach to computational
thinking. The course is titled Technical and Social Foundations of
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
SIGCSE’09, March 3–7, 2009, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA.
ACM 978-1-60558-183-5/09/03.
549