Table Of ContentEducational Communications and Technology:
Issues and Innovations
Peter J. Rich
Charles B. Hodges Editors
Emerging
Research, Practice,
and Policy on
Computational
Thinking
Educational Communications and Technology:
Issues and Innovations
Series Editors
Michael Spector
M.J. Bishop
Dirk Ifenthaler
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11824
Peter J. Rich • Charles B. Hodges
Editors
Emerging Research, Practice,
and Policy on Computational
Thinking
Editors
Peter J. Rich Charles B. Hodges
150K MCKB Georgia Southern University
Brigham Young University Statesboro, GA, USA
Provo, UT, USA
Educational Communications and Technology: Issues and Innovations
ISBN 978-3-319-52690-4 ISBN 978-3-319-52691-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-52691-1
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Preface
Emerging Research, Practice, and Policy
on Computational Thinking
Computational thinking is quickly becoming an essential literacy for modern learn-
ers (Wright, Rich, & Leatham, 2012). The International Society for Technology in
Education recently defined computational thinking as students “develop[ing] and
employ[ing] strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that lever-
age the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions” (http://www.
iste.org/standards/standards/for-students-2016). The US Bureau of Labor Statistics
projects that the need for computer programmers will be three times greater than the
current number of computer science graduates. Perhaps more importantly, many
contend that people in a diversity of fields will need to demonstrate the ability to
think computationally and to manipulate technology to advance our abilities in dif-
ferent fields (Wing, 2009). Thus, computing is no longer a topic of study just for
programmers, but for all pupils.
At the time of this writing, computing has become a compulsory topic in school
in over a half dozen different countries, with over a dozen more committing to make
it so by 2020 (Balanskat & Englehardt, 2015), including a handful that ask students
to learn computing from the earliest levels. With this increasing attention to the need
to teach computing at earlier ages comes the responsibility to study and understand
effective teaching and learning practices in computing education, especially for
non-computer science students. Up to this point, most attention has focused on
changing policies and practices. This volume is an attempt to bring together emerg-
ing research around computational thinking, from primary education to high school
and on through higher education.
We issued a call for chapters and received dozens of submissions, demonstrating
that there are many who are studying the emerging practices of teaching computing
to new groups. The chosen 25 chapters represent authors from nearly a dozen differ-
ent countries. Each chapter was first reviewed editorially and then peer-reviewed by
other authors. The resulting volume is divided into six different sections: (a) K-12
v
vi Preface
education, (b) higher education, (c) teacher development, (d) assessment practices
in computational thinking, (e) computational thinking tools, and (f) computational
thinking policies.
Chapters in K-12 education represent the ways in which computing has been
implemented in a public school context during the formative years. D’Alba and
Huett share the result of working with middle and high school students in an after-
school context in which parents played a collaborative role in learning to code.
Seneviratne presents the successes and challenges of working specifically with high
school girls, a typically underrepresented group in computer science education.
Jones-Harris and Chamblee describe the results of working with African-American
students in a precalculus course. Delcker and Ifenthaler describe how one German
state is implementing a new required computer science course in their upper sec-
ondary schools. Finally, Tatar, Harrison, Stewart, Frisina, and Musaeus explore the
type of thinking that must first occur in order to prepare middle school students to
begin to think computationally and its associated challenges.
Higher education chapters present a look at the ways in which computational
thinking is being integrated with university courses to improve instruction across a
diverse range of subjects. Musaeus, Tatar, and Rosen explore what computational
thinking would look like in medical education and how this might improve students’
analytical abilities. Rambally demonstrates how computational thinking can
improve students’ abilities to understand discrete mathematical structures. Quaye
and Dasuki propose a method for teaching computational thinking in an introduc-
tory programming course in Nigeria using a virtual world context. Kaya and
Cagiltay show how focusing on computational thinking in an introductory comput-
ing course for non-CS majors can successfully lead to increased understanding of
core concepts. Liu, Perera, and Klein report on efforts to teach computational think-
ing while promoting collaboration, problem-solving, and the sharing of educational
resources.
The teacher development section focuses on the preparation of teachers who
formerly had received no training in computing and how they might successfully
teach it to their pupils. The chapters by Hester-Croff and Buss and Gamboa both
report on efforts to train teachers to foster and recognize computational thinking
patterns in middle and high school students. Both Yadav, Gretter, Good, and Mclean
and Sadik, Ottenbreit-Leftwich, and Nadiruzzaman focus on how to prepare preser-
vice teachers during their formative teacher education to teach computational think-
ing. Toikkanen and Leinonen report on the design and executing of a MOOC with
over 1000 teachers as they prepare for the mandatory integration of computing in
primary education in Finland.
The section on assessment practices in computational thinking attempts to better
understand what and how to measure as students engage with computational think-
ing practices. Mueller, Becket, Hennessey, and Shodiev analyzed Canada core com-
petencies for alignment with computational thinking practices. In so doing, they
found several areas where computational thinking might already be assessed in
related topics and discuss areas for improvement and integration. Grover proposes
a system of assessments that go beyond measuring just cognitive outcomes. She
Preface vii
then demonstrates how this is being applied in a middle school course on founda-
tions of computational thinking.
The tools section shares resources for teaching, assessing, and implementing
computational thinking. Repenning, Basawapatna, and Escherle present a frame-
work for different tools that scaffold learners through three important stages of
computational thinking: problem formation, solution expression, and execution/
evaluation. Lawanto, Close, Ames, and Brasiel demonstrate how the Dr. Scratch
tool can be used to measure students’ computational thinking skills. Similarly,
Brasiel et al. outline the development, use, and research of the FUN! Tool, a Python-
based framework for measuring minute-by-minute interactions in the Scratch
environment.
Policy chapters demonstrate the changing landscape and efforts of different gov-
ernments and groups as they attempt to implement computational thinking. Pan
describes the restructuring of CS0, a required introductory computing course for all
non-CS majors in the People’s Republic of China, to include computational think-
ing principles and practices. Similarly, in response to the Korean government’s des-
ignation to include software education as part of its core curriculum by 2018, Lee
presents an exposition of representative projects created from a group of 72 pilot
schools nationwide that showcase how computational thinking might be integrated
into the curriculum. Ruberg and Owens describe a district-wide approach to imple-
menting computing from kindergarten all the way through grade 12, including both
in-school and after-school efforts to integrate computing across the curriculum.
Finally, Kafai and Burke, two of the early promoters of computational thinking, end
the book with a reconceptualization of computational thinking to the broader notion
of computational participation, an idea that promotes the integration of computing
into communities of practice that extend beyond simply problem-solving and creat-
ing to also including individual and group expression and everyday solutions to life.
Together, these chapters paint a picture of the emerging research and practice
surrounding efforts to include the teaching and learning computational thinking in
an increasingly computational world. While they are by no means a comprehensive
report of all that is occurring, it is our hope that they are representative of the chal-
lenges and successes that students, teachers, and policy makers face as computing
becomes an essential and required subject of study.
Provo, UT, USA Peter J. Rich
Statesboro, GA, USA Charles B. Hodges
References
Balanskat, A., & Englehardt, K. (2015). Computing our future. Computing programming and cod-
ing. Priorities, school curricula and initiatives across europe. European Schoolnet.
Wing, J. M. (2009). Computational thinking. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 24(6), 6–7.
Wright, G. A., Rich, P., & Leatham, K. R. (2012). How programming fits with technology educa-
tion curriculum. Technology and Engineering Teacher, 71(7), 3.
Contents
Part I K-12 Education
Learning Computational Skills in uCode@UWG: Challenges
and Recommendations ............................................ 3
Adriana D’Alba and Kim C. Huett
Making Computer Science Attractive to High School Girls
with Computational Thinking Approaches: A Case Study .............. 21
Oshani Seneviratne
Understanding African-American Students’ Problem-Solving
Ability in the Precalculus and Advanced Placement Computer
Science Classroom ............................................... 33
Cristal Jones-Harris and Gregory Chamblee
Computational Thinking as an Interdisciplinary Approach
to Computer Science School Curricula: A German Perspective ......... 49
Jan Delcker and Dirk Ifenthaler
Proto-computational Thinking: The Uncomfortable Underpinnings ..... 63
Deborah Tatar, Steve Harrison, Michael Stewart, Chris Frisina,
and Peter Musaeus
Part II Higher Education
Medical Computational Thinking: Computer Scientific
Reasoning in the Medical Curriculum .............................. 85
Peter Musaeus, Deborah Tatar, and Michael Rosen
Integrating Computational Thinking in Discrete Structures ............ 99
Gerard Rambally
A Computational Approach to Learning Programming Using
Visual Programming in a Developing Country University ............. 121
Ago MacGranaky Quaye and Salihu Ibrahim Dasuki
ix
x Contents
Creating and Evaluating a Visual Programming Course Based
on Student Experience .......................................... 135
Kadir Yucel Kaya and Kursat Cagiltay
Using Model-Based Learning to Promote Computational
Thinking Education ............................................ 153
Hong P. Liu, Sirani M. Perera, and Jerry W. Klein
Part III Teacher Development
Teaching Computational Thinking Patterns in Rural Communities ..... 175
Carla Hester Croff
Teacher Transformations in Developing Computational Thinking:
Gaming and Robotics Use in After-School Settings ................... 189
Alan Buss and Ruben Gamboa
Computational Thinking in Teacher Education ...................... 205
Aman Yadav, Sarah Gretter, Jon Good, and Tamika McLean
Computational Thinking Conceptions and Misconceptions:
Progression of Preservice Teacher Thinking During Computer
Science Lesson Planning ......................................... 221
Olgun Sadik, Anne-Ottenbreit Leftwich, and Hamid Nadiruzzaman
The Code ABC MOOC: Experiences from a Coding
and Computational Thinking MOOC for Finnish Primary
School Teachers ................................................ 239
Tarmo Toikkanen and Teemu Leinonen
Part IV Assessing Computational Thinking
Assessing Computational Thinking Across the Curriculum ............ 251
Julie Mueller, Danielle Beckett, Eden Hennessey, and Hasan Shodiev
Assessing Algorithmic and Computational Thinking in K-12:
Lessons from a Middle School Classroom .......................... 269
Shuchi Grover
Part V Computational Thinking Tools
Principles of Computational Thinking Tools ........................ 291
Alexander Repenning, Ashok R. Basawapatna, and Nora A. Escherle
Exploring Strengths and Weaknesses in Middle School Students’
Computational Thinking in Scratch ............................... 307
Kevin Lawanto, Kevin Close, Clarence Ames, and Sarah Brasiel
Contents xi
Measuring Computational Thinking Development
with the FUN! Tool ............................................. 327
Sarah Brasiel, Kevin Close, Soojeong Jeong, Kevin Lawanto,
Phil Janisiewicz, and Taylor Martin
Part VI Policy
Reenergizing CS0 in China ...................................... 351
Tien-Yo (Tim) Pan
Computational Thinking: Efforts in Korea ......................... 363
Miran Lee
A Future-Focused Education: Designed to Create
the Innovators of Tomorrow ..................................... 367
Laurie F. Ruberg and Aileen Owens
Computational Participation: Teaching Kids to Create
and Connect Through Code ...................................... 393
Yasmin B. Kafai and Quinn Burke
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
