Computational Thinking

What is
Computational Thinking?

"Computational thinking is the new literacy of the 21st century."
- Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Research, Jeannette Marie Wing

Computational Thinking is the thought processes involved in formulating problems and bring about computational solutions so that it can effectively carried out by an information-processing agent.

Why is
Computational Thinking Important?

Hadi Partovi, a tech entrepreneur and investor, and CEO of the education nonprofit Code.org says, "Understanding how technology works, how the Internet works, and learning to solve problems with computational thinking, these skills are as important as learning how electricity works, how digestion works, or solving problems using algebra."

Who Uses
Computational Thinking?

- A writing student who is researching a topic and needs to take notes in an organized and structured way
- A science student trying to draw conclusions about an experiment
- A history student trying make comparisons between different historical periods
- A writing student trying to organize supporting details for a topic sentence
- A reading student trying to find evidence to support character traits within the text
- A math student trying to find a new way to solve a problem
- A math student trying to decide whether they need to multiply, divide, add, or subtract in order to solve a word problem

Concepts of
Computational Thinking

I. Decompose

To break large task into smaller details
Allow us to clearly explain a process to another person or to a computer, or even to just write notes for ourselves

II. Patterns

The ability to notice similarities or common differences that will help us make predictions or lead us to shortcuts
It is frequently the basis for solving problems and designing algorithms.

III. Abstractions

The ability to filter out information that is not necessary to solve a certain type of problem and generalize the information that is necessary.
It allows us to represent an idea or a process in general terms (variables) so that we can use it to solve other problems that are similar in nature.

IV. Algorithms

The ability to develop a step-by-step strategy for solving a problem
It is often based on the decomposition of a problem and the identification of patterns that help to solve the problem
In CS, it is often written abstractly, utilizing variables in place of specific numbers

V. Logical Reasoning

Make predictions
It helps develop children’s ability to reason logically and to make deductions from the information they have
Debug – looking carefully at the code and using logical reasoning to explain what the program is actually doing are good starting points