Dr. Charles Hodges (Georgia Southern University) and I are currently co-editing a book on Computational Thinking research and practice that will be published by Springer. Every week, we like to share a quote from one of the chapters that highlights the authors’ work. This week, our contribution comes from Julie Mueller (Wilfrid Laurier University), Danielle Beckett (Brock University), Eden Hennessey (WLU) and Hasan Shodiev (WLU) of Canada.
From their chapter, titled, “Assessing Computational Thinking Across the Curriculum,” they state:
Computational thinking has a wide application beyond computing itself. It is the process of recognizing aspects of computation in the world and applying tools and techniques from computing to understand and reason about natural, social and artificial systems and processes (Computing at School, 2015). It allows students to tackle problems, to break them down into solvable chunks and to devise algorithms to solve them. Therefore, computational thinking concentrates on students performing a thought process, not on the production of artefacts or evidence.…
Ultimately, computational thinking is a process and therefore should not be evaluated as an end product. It is an ongoing learning progression through grade levels and across subject areas to eventually produce effective and productive 21st century thinkers.
