The Long Quest for Computational Thinking
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Authors
Tedre, Matti
Denning, Peter J.
Subjects
Computer science education
Computational thinking
CSER
Computational ideas
History of computational thinking
Disciplinary ways of thinking and practicing
Computational thinking
CSER
Computational ideas
History of computational thinking
Disciplinary ways of thinking and practicing
Advisors
Date of Issue
2016
Date
Publisher
ACM
Language
Abstract
Computational thinking (CT) is a popular phrase that refers
to a collection of computational ideas and habits of mind
that people in computing disciplines acquire through their
work in designing programs, software, simulations, and computations performed by machinery. Recently a computational thinking for K–12 movement has spawned initiatives
across the education sector, and educational reforms are under way in many countries. However, modern CT initiatives should be well aware of the broad and deep history
of computational thinking, or risk repeating already refuted
claims, past mistakes, and already solved problems, or losing some of the richest and most ambitious ideas in CT.
This paper presents an overview of three important historical currents from which CT has developed: evolution of
computing’s disciplinary ways of thinking and practicing,
educational research and efforts in computing, and emergence of computational science and digitalization of society.
The paper examines a number of threats to CT initiatives:
lack of ambition, dogmatism, knowing versus doing, exaggerated claims, narrow views of computing, overemphasis
on formulation, and lost sight of computational models.
Type
Article
Description
The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2999541.2999542
Series/Report No
Department
Computer Science (CS)
Organization
Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
Funder
Format
10 p.
Citation
Tedre, Matti, and Peter J. Denning. "The long quest for computational thinking." Proceedings of the 16th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research. ACM, 2016.
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.