Computational Thinking: a Disciplinary Perspective
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Viewpoint Do We Really Need Computational Thinking?
viewpoints VDOI:10.1145/3231587 Enrico Nardelli Viewpoint Do We Really Need Computational Thinking? Considering the expression “computational thinking” as an entry point to understand why the fundamental contribution of computing to science is the shift from solving problems to having problems solved. CONFESS UPFRONT, the title of this Viewpoint is meant to attract readers’ attention. As a com- puter scientist, I am convinced we need the concept of compu- Itational thinking, interpreted as “being able to think like a computer scientist and being able to apply this competence to every field of human endeavor.” The focus of this Viewpoint is to dis- cuss to what extent we need the expres- sion “computational thinking” (CT). The term was already known through the work of Seymour Papert,13 many com- putational scientists,5 and a recent pa- per15 clarifies both its historical devel- opment and intellectual roots. After the widely cited Communications Viewpoint by Jeannette Wing,19 and thanks to her role at NSF,6 an extensive discussion opened with hundreds of subsequent papers dissecting the expression. There is not yet a commonly agreed definition of CT—what I consider in this View- Wing discussed CT to argue it is im- Forsythe, a former ACM president and point is whether we really need a defini- portant every student is taught “how one of the founding fathers of computer tion and for which goal. a computer scientist thinks,”19 which science education in academia, in 1968 To anticipate the conclusion, we I interpret to mean it is important to wrote: “The most valuable acquisition probably need the expression as an in- teach computer science to every stu- in a scientific or technical education are strument, as a shorthand reference to dent. -
Siu-Cheung Kong Harold Abelson Editors
Siu-Cheung Kong Harold Abelson Editors Computational Thinking Education Computational Thinking Education Siu-Cheung Kong • Harold Abelson Editors Computational Thinking Education Editors Siu-Cheung Kong Harold Abelson Department of Mathematics Computer Science and Artificial and Information Technology Intelligence Laboratory The Education University of Hong Kong Massachusetts Institute of Technology Hong Kong, Hong Kong Cambridge, MA, USA ISBN 978-981-13-6527-0 ISBN 978-981-13-6528-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6528-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2019931527 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019. This book is an open access publication. Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adap- tation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the book’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publi- cation does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. -
Introducing Computational Thinking in K-12 Education: Historical, Epistemological, Pedagogical, Cognitive, and Affective Aspects Michael Lodi
Introducing Computational Thinking in K-12 Education: Historical, Epistemological, Pedagogical, Cognitive, and Affective Aspects Michael Lodi To cite this version: Michael Lodi. Introducing Computational Thinking in K-12 Education: Historical, Epistemological, Pedagogical, Cognitive, and Affective Aspects. Computers and Society [cs.CY]. Dipartimento diIn- formatica - Scienza e Ingegneria, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2020. English. tel-02981951 HAL Id: tel-02981951 https://hal.inria.fr/tel-02981951 Submitted on 28 Oct 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Copyright Alma Mater Studiorum · Universit`adi Bologna PhD program in COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING INTRODUCING COMPUTATIONAL THINKING IN K-12 EDUCATION: HISTORICAL, EPISTEMOLOGICAL, PEDAGOGICAL, COGNITIVE, AND AFFECTIVE ASPECTS Presented by: MICHAEL LODI Dep. of Computer Science and Engineering INRIA Focus team PhD program coordinator: Supervisor: Prof. DAVIDE SANGIORGI Prof.SIMONE MARTINI © Michael Lodi, 2020 Licence: Unless otherwise authorized by the author, the thesis may be freely consulted and a copy may be saved and printed for strictly personal study, research and teaching purposes, with express prohibition of any direct or indirect commercial use. All other rights on the material are reserved. This is an authors' pre-print version of the work. -
Computational Thinking, Between Papert and Wing
Computational thinking, between Papert and Wing Michael Lodi + and Simone Martini +,* + Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, Italia, and Inria Sophia Antipolis, France * S. Martini: Research partially conducted while on sabbatical leave at the Collegium—Lyon Institute for Advanced Studies, 2018–2019 February 2021 ABSTRACT The pervasiveness of Computer Science (CS) in today’s digital society and the extensive use of computational methods in other sciences calls for its introduction in the school curriculum. Hence, Computer Science Education is becoming more and more relevant. In CS K-12 education, Computational thinking (CT) is one of the abused buzzwords: different stakeholders (media, educators, politicians) give it different meanings, some more oriented to CS, others more linked to its interdisciplinary value. The expression was introduced by two leading researchers, Jeannette Wing (in 2006) and Seymour Papert (much early, in 1980), each of them stressing (when more, when less explicitly) different aspects of a common theme. This paper will use a historical approach to review, discuss, and put in context these first two educational and epistemological approaches to CT. We will relate them to today’s context and evaluate what aspects are still relevant for CS K-12 education. Of the two, particular interest is devoted to “Papert’s CT,” which is the lesser-known and the lesser-studied. We will conclude that “Wing’s CT” and “Papert’s CT,” when correctly understood, are both relevant to today’s computer science education. From Wing, we should retain computer science’s centrality, CT being the (scientific and cultural) substratum of the technical competencies. Under this interpretation, CT is a lens and a set of categories for understanding the algorithmic fabric of today’s world. -
A System for Introductory Computer Science Education with A
Genost: A System for Introductory Computer Science Education with a Focus on Computational Thinking by Garret Walliman A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Masters of Science Approved April 2015 by the Graduate Supervisory Committee: Robert Atkinson, Co-Chair Yinong Chen, Co-Chair Yann-Hang Lee ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY May 2015 ABSTRACT Computational thinking, the creative thought process behind algorithmic design and programming, is a crucial introductory skill for both computer scientists and the population in general. In this thesis I perform an investigation into introductory computer science education in the United States and find that computational thinking is not effectively taught at either the high school or the college level. To remedy this, I present a new educational system intended to teach computational thinking called Genost. Genost consists of a software tool and a curriculum based on teaching computational thinking through fundamental programming structures and algorithm design. Genost’s software design is informed by a review of eight major computer science educational software systems. Genost’s curriculum is informed by a review of major literature on computational thinking. In two educational tests of Genost utilizing both college and high school students, Genost was shown to significantly increase computational thinking ability with a large effect size. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special thanks to the following individuals: My thesis advisors Dr. Yinong Chen, Dr. Robert Atkinson, and Dr. Yann-Hang Lee for opening many doors and providing an enormous amount of feedback. Active Capstone team members Rizwan Ahmad, Garth Bjerk, Tracey Heath, David Humphries, Corey Jallen, Ian Plumley, Stephen Pluta, Randy Queen, and Matt Rechia, for helping to create both the Genost design and the Genost software and robot. -
History of Logo
UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Previously Published Works Title History of Logo Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1623m1p3 Journal Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, 4(HOPL) ISSN 2475-1421 Authors Solomon, C Harvey, B Kahn, K et al. Publication Date 2020-06-12 DOI 10.1145/3386329 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California History of Logo CYNTHIA SOLOMON, Cynthia Solomon Consulting, USA BRIAN HARVEY, University of California, Berkeley, USA KEN KAHN, University of Oxford, UK HENRY LIEBERMAN, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), USA MARK L. MILLER, Learningtech.org, USA MARGARET MINSKY, New York University-Shanghai, China ARTEMIS PAPERT, Independent artist, Canada BRIAN SILVERMAN, Playful Invention Co., Canada Shepherd: Tomas Petricek, University of Kent, UK Logo is more than a programming language. It is a learning environment where children explore mathematical ideas and create projects of their own design. Logo, the first programming language explicitly designed for children, was invented by Seymour Papert, Wallace Feurzeig, Daniel Bobrow, and Cynthia Solomon in 1966 at Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN). Logo’s design drew upon two theoretical frameworks: Jean Piaget’s constructivism and Marvin Minsky’s artificial intelligence research at MIT. One of Logo’s foundational ideas was that children shouldhavea powerful programming environment. Early Lisp served as a model with its symbolic computation, recursive functions, operations on linked lists, and dynamic scoping of variables. Logo became a symbol for change in elementary mathematics education and in the nature of school itself. -
Introducing Computational Thinking in K-12 Education: Historical, Epistemological, Pedagogical, Cognitive, and Affective Aspects
Alma Mater Studiorum · Universit`adi Bologna Dottorato di Ricerca in COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING Ciclo XXXII Settore Concorsuale: 01/B1 INFORMATICA Settore Scientifico Disciplinare: INF/01 INFORMATICA INTRODUCING COMPUTATIONAL THINKING IN K-12 EDUCATION: HISTORICAL, EPISTEMOLOGICAL, PEDAGOGICAL, COGNITIVE, AND AFFECTIVE ASPECTS Presentata da: MICHAEL LODI Coordinatore Dottorato: Supervisore: Chiar.mo Prof. Chiar.mo Prof. DAVIDE SANGIORGI SIMONE MARTINI Esame finale anno 2020 Contents Contents i Abstract vii Publications by the Author ix Terminology xiii Introduction1 I Literature Review 15 1 CS in K-12 Education 17 1.1 The Importance of CS in Society and in Schools................ 17 1.2 CS in School Curricula............................. 19 1.3 Other Initiatives................................. 20 1.3.1 Code.org................................. 21 1.4 The Situation in Italy.............................. 21 1.4.1 The Italian School System....................... 21 1.4.2 CS in the Curriculum.......................... 22 1.4.3 Teacher Training............................ 23 1.4.4 Recent Developments.......................... 23 1.4.5 The \Programma il Futuro" Project.................. 24 1.5 Conclusions................................... 25 2 Computational Thinking and Coding 27 2.1 Computational Thinking............................. 27 2.2 Five Definitions of CT.............................. 28 2.2.1 Common Aspects............................ 30 2.3 Misconceptions about CT definitions...................... 33 2.4 Coding..................................... -
Outline of Thought
Outline of thought • computer (see § Machine thought below) – general purpose device that can be pro- grammed to carry out a set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically. Since a se- quence of operations (an algorithm) can be readily changed, the computer can solve more than one kind of problem. • An activity of intelligence – intellectual capacity, which is characterized by perception, consciousness, self-awareness, and volition. Through their intel- ligence, humans possess the cognitive abilities to learn, form concepts, understand, apply logic, and A chimpanzee thinking. reason, including the capacities to recognize pat- terns, comprehend ideas, plan, problem solve, make The following outline is provided as an overview of and decisions, retaining, and use language to communi- topical guide to thought (thinking): cate. Intelligence enables humans to experience and think. Thought (also called thinking) – the mental process in which beings form psychological associations and models • A type of mental process – something that in- of the world. Thinking is manipulating information, dividuals can do with their minds. Mental pro- as when we form concepts, engage in problem solving, cesses include perception, memory, thinking, reason and make decisions. Thought, the act of thinking, volition, and emotion. Sometimes the term produces thoughts. A thought may be an idea, an image, cognitive function is used instead. a sound or even an emotional feeling that arises from the • [3] brain. Thought as a biological adaptation mechanism 2 Types of thoughts 1 Nature of thought • Concept Thought (or thinking) can be described as all of the fol- lowing: • Abstract concept • Concrete concept • An activity taking place in a: • Conjecture • brain – organ that serves as the center of the • Decision (see § Decision-making below) nervous system in all vertebrate and most in- • vertebrate animals (only a few invertebrates Definition such as sponges, jellyfish, adult sea squirts and • Explanation starfish do not have a brain).