REPORT OF A WORKSHOP ON THE PEDAGOGICAL ASPECTS OF
COMPUTATIONAL
THINKING
Committee for the Workshops on Computational Thinking
Computer Science and Telecommunications Board
Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, D.C.
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20001
NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
Support for this project was provided by the National Science Foundation under sponsor award number CNS-0831827. Any opinions expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the agencies and organizations that provided support for the project.
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COMMITTEE FOR THE WORKSHOPS ON COMPUTATIONAL THINKING
MARCIA LINN, University of California, Berkeley, Chair
ALFRED V. AHO, Columbia University
M. BRIAN BLAKE, University of Notre Dame
ROBERT CONSTABLE, Cornell University
YASMIN B. KAFAI, University of Pennsylvania
JANET L. KOLODNER, Georgia Institute of Technology
LAWRENCE SNYDER, University of Washington, Seattle
URI WILENSKY, Northwestern University
Staff
HERBERT S. LIN, Study Director and Chief Scientist, CSTB
ENITA A. WILLIAMS, Associate Program Officer
SHENAE BRADLEY, Senior Program Assistant
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS BOARD
ROBERT F. SPROULL, Oracle, Chair
PRITHVIRAJ BANERJEE, Hewlett Packard Company
STEVEN M. BELLOVIN, Columbia University
SEYMOUR E. GOODMAN, Georgia Institute of Technology
JOHN E. KELLY III, IBM Research
JON M. KLEINBERG, Cornell University
ROBERT KRAUT, Carnegie Mellon University
SUSAN LANDAU, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
PETER LEE, Microsoft Corporation
DAVID LIDDLE, US Venture Partners
WILLIAM H. PRESS, University of Texas at Austin
PRABHAKAR RAGHAVAN, Yahoo! Research
DAVID E. SHAW, D.E. Shaw Research
ALFRED Z. SPECTOR, Google, Inc.
JOHN SWAINSON, Silver Lake Partners
PETER SZOLOVITS, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
PETER J. WEINBERGER, Google, Inc.
ERNEST J. WILSON, University of Southern California
JON EISENBERG, Director
RENEE HAWKINS, Financial and Administrative Manager
HERBERT S. LIN, Chief Scientist, CSTB
LYNETTE I. MILLETT, Senior Program Officer
EMILY ANN MEYER, Program Officer
VIRGINIA BACON TALATI, Associate Program Officer
ENITA A. WILLIAMS, Associate Program Officer
SHENAE BRADLEY, Senior Program Assistant
ERIC WHITAKER, Senior Program Assistant
For more information on CSTB, see its website at
http://www.cstb.org, write to CSTB, National Research Council,
500 Fifth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001, call (202) 334-2605,
or e-mail the CSTB at cstb@nas.edu.
Preface
In 2008, the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate of the National Science Foundation asked the National Research Council (NRC) to conduct two workshops to explore the nature of computational thinking and its cognitive and educational implications. The first workshop focused on the scope and nature of computational thinking and on articulating what “computational thinking for everyone” might mean. A report of that workshop was released in January 2010.1 Drawing in part on the proceedings of that workshop, the present report summarizes the second workshop, which was held February 4-5, 2010, in Washington, D.C., and focused on pedagogical considerations for computational thinking.
Although this document was prepared by the Committee for the Workshops on Computational Thinking based on workshop presentations and discussions, it does not reflect consensus views of the committee. Under NRC guidelines for conducting workshops and developing workshop report summaries, workshop activities do not seek consensus and workshop reports (such as the present volume) cannot be said to represent “an NRC view” on the subject at hand. As with the first workshop, this second workshop revealed a plethora of perspectives on ways to approach pedagogy for computational thinking. The two workshops,
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1National Research Council, 2010, Report of a Workshop on the Scope and Nature of Computational Thinking, Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press. Available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12840. Last accessed February 7, 2011.
taken together, call attention to the diversity of views on many aspects of computational thinking as well as its definition, and it is the hope of the committee that the present report, which contains a digest of both presentations and discussion, will serve as a vehicle that increases communication on the topic across the community.
The full workshop agenda is provided in Appendix A, and short biographies of the workshop participants are given in Appendix B.
Marcia C. Linn, Chair
Committee for the Workshops on Computational Thinking
Acknowledgment of Reviewers
This report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Christine Cunningham, Museum of Science
Margaret Honey, New York Hall of Science
Peter Szolovits, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Robert Tinker, The Concord Consortium
Michelle Williams, Michigan State University
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they did not see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was coordinated by Joseph F. Traub, Columbia University. Appointed by the NRC, he was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the authoring committee and the institution.
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Contents
1.1 Scope and Approach of This Report
1.2 Motivating an Examination of Pedagogy
1.3 Organization of This Report
2 KEY POINTS EXPRESSED BY PRESENTERS AND DISCUSSANTS
2.1 Perspectives on Computational Thinking and Computational Thinkers
2.2 Activities of Computational Thinking
2.3 Contexts for Computational Thinking
2.3.6 Abstracting Problem Solving from Specific Contexts
2.4 Pedagogical Environments for Computational Thinking
2.4.1 Foci for Pedagogical Environments
2.4.2 Illustrative Pedagogical Environments
2.5 Developmental Considerations and Computational Thinking
2.6 Assessments for Computational Thinking
2.7 Teachers and Computational Thinking
2.7.1 Professional Development and Other Needs for Teacher Support
2.7.2 Teachers and Career Awareness
2.8 Learning Contexts and Computational Thinking
2.8.2 Out-of-School Computational Thinking
2.9 Research and Unanswered Questions Regarding Computational Thinking
2.9.1 The Importance of a Process for Defining Computational Thinking
2.9.3 The Need for Interoperability
2.9.4 The Need for a Career Framework
3 COMMITTEE MEMBER PERSPECTIVES
4 SUMMARIES OF INDIVIDUAL PRESENTATIONS
4.1 Computational Thinking and Scientific Visualization
4.1.2 Robert Tinker, Concord Consortium
4.1.3 Mitch Resnick, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
4.1.4 John Jungck, Beloit College, BioQUEST
4.1.5 Idit Caperton, World Wide Workshop, Globaloria
4.2 Computational Thinking and Technology
4.2.2 Robert Panoff, Shodor Education Foundation
4.2.3 Stephen Uzzo, New York Hall of Science, Museum Studies
4.2.4 Jill Denner, Education, Training, Research Associates
4.2.5 Lou Gross, National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis
4.3 Computational Thinking in Engineering and Computer Science
4.3.2 Christine Cunningham, Museum of Science, Engineering is Elementary Project
4.3.3 Taylor Martin, University of Texas at Austin
4.3.4 Ursula Wolz, College of New Jersey
4.3.5 Peter Henderson, Butler University
4.4 Teaching and Learning Computational Thinking
4.4.2 Deanna Kuhn, Columbia University
4.4.3 Matthew Stone, Rutgers University
4.4.4 Jim Slotta, University of Toronto, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
4.4.5 Joyce Malyn-Smith, Education Development Center, Inc., ITEST Learning Resource Center
4.4.6 Jan Cuny, National Science Foundation, CS 10K Project
4.5.2 Michelle Williams, Michigan State University
4.5.3 Walter Allan and Jeri Erickson, Foundation for Blood Research, EcoScienceWorks Project
4.5.4 Danny Edelson, National Geographic Society
4.6 Measuring Outcomes (for Evaluation) and Collecting Feedback (for Assessment)
4.6.2 Paulo Blikstein, Stanford University
4.6.3 Christina Schwarz, Michigan State University
4.6.4 Mike Clancy, University of California, Berkeley
4.6.5 Derek Briggs, University of Colorado, Boulder
4.6.6 Cathy Lachapelle, Museum of Science, Engineering is Elementary Project
B Short Biographies of Committee Members, Workshop Participants, and Staff