Collaboration and problem solving are an integral component of the modern-day workforce and, for that reason, have become an increasingly common part of modern education. Those who are able to break problems down and utilize a certain way of thinking to solve them while also incorporating the latest in technology to help along the way are very valuable in our STEM-heavy world. More and more commonly, computational thinking is being introduced to students in the early grades and we think that’s a recipe for future success.
How to Understand and Incorporate Computational Thinking
Computational thinking, as evidenced by the fact you may not have heard of it, is a relatively new trend in education—one that’s designed to teach kids to think differently and prepare them for a world in which it will be useful. Since so much of the modern workforce runs through computer science, computational thinking is quickly becoming a must-have skill by those who desire a top-level STEM career. Computational thinking creates a direct path to problem solving and is easily transferrable to other subjects after students learn it in their computer science or science classes. Outside of this niche, however, not many people know its value or even know what it is. It will be a skill that’s needed in every career much sooner than you think, though.
Any teacher who embraces technology use in the classroom is capable of teaching computational thinking to their students. It’s important that educators help their students realize that this is not a skill confined to just working with computers and coding, but, rather, is something that will be useful in all fields. It’s a skill that helps unlock deeper thinking and discovery, catalyzes exploration, and serves as a vehicle for tapping student curiosity, which leads to more creative solutions. The best part about teaching computational thinking is that there are ways teachers can introduce it so that it’s appropriate for students in every grade level. What it really comes down to is showing students how to use step-by-step explanations to select a project, work through it efficiently, interpret data, analyze it, break down the problem, run simulations, and more—all of which are very relevant in the real world.
Teaching computational thinking is fairly easy for educators because there are so many ways in which it can be used. Learning how to teach it is sometimes slightly more difficult, however. The best ways are for teachers to go at their own pace, consider the different subject areas computational thinking can be used in, and experiment with computational thinking-based activities to gauge how they might fit into their classroom. If educators are committed to integrating computational thinking into their teaching, there are plenty of resources and tools to help them make it happen. Students often use computational thinking skills already and don’t even realize it, but, if we can get them to consciously employ computational thinking strategies, we can get them better prepared for real-world situations.
Using Computational Thinking Beyond Computer Science
As we touched on and as many teachers who preach the importance of computational thinking will tell you, it is a way of thinking that can benefit students in almost every class, not just computer science courses. These days, a high-quality education is one in which students are challenged to use computational thinking and creativity to see, understand, and change the world. We use computational thinking in everyday life and, in most of the classes they take, students will be required to do so as well by the nature of their work. When teachers work with students to help each other understand this term and its relevance, they will each have a better grasp on why it is so important to consider. One of the chief realizations is that it is extremely relevant in all aspects of modern life.
In order for students to be taught how to use computational thinking, teachers first need to learn how to teach it. Even in the early grades, teachers can leverage coding to teach kids basic skills like literacy and numeracy. In the same way, computational thinking is useful in all parts of the curriculum and will continue to become more useful as children get older. The thing about coding is that it gives students a practical opportunity to apply computational thinking in the classroom while learning relevant skills and completing significant projects. There’s no doubt that both coding and computational thinking are going to be a huge part of the world students will soon live in, so school leaders need to figure out how to weave them into other areas of the curriculum, like math and English, for example.
To start out with bringing computational thinking into the core subjects, many experts recommend deciding on integrating one particular principle and going from there. Algorithms, for example, are a key part of both coding and computational thinking and can be related to other subjects in the curriculum. This allows kids to learn how they can apply computational thinking while they’re reading or writing a story. When it comes down to it, computational thinking is really just identifying patterns, classifying information, problem solving, and working with instructions to complete projects. Of course, this can be done across the curriculum and not just in computer science. It’s becoming a fundamental way of innovating in today’s world and computational thinking will soon—if it has not already—become a requirement for everybody.
Makerspaces Help Promote Computational Thinking
Computational thinking is generally seen as a more serious approach to learning while makerspaces tend to provide a lighter side of education. They are, however, very important to each other. One of the reasons for this is that computational thinking meshes perfectly with the design thinking that is often required of students when they are engaged in makerspace activities. Computational thinking also requires a fair amount of inquiry, which students are also always exercising in makerspaces and, because of this, there are lots of ways to incorporate computational thinking into making. The only thing that happens in makerspaces in hands-on learning, so a computational approach serves students extremely well when they need to consider what comes next or why their first attempt failed by breaking down what they know and arriving at what they previously did not.
The things that students learn in the makerspace are then carried with them into all of their other academic classes. This is just as true of computational thinking. Oftentimes, when they are constructing maker projects during the school day, kids are taking on many different roles, including architect, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and software engineer. In these professions, computational thinking is a must and students begin to realize this when they are presented with authentic problems to solve. Plus, when they are using tools like Arduino boards or Raspberry Pi’s to create powerfully connected devices, they tend to recognize how these tools create connections between different objects and are able to visualize the importance of real-time data in operating both modern machines and even small-scale maker devices.
In makerspaces, students can engage in a few different kinds of learning with some being more serious and others more crafty in nature. The thing is that, in one form or another, each form can be used to highlight computational thinking, better engage students, and impart on them this key skill. Teachers can even keep their existing curriculum largely unchanged. Computational thinking is an extension of learning rather than an entirely new subject to learn. It can be leveraged in science, math, and even English classes to help students break down a problem and see the potential solutions before even arriving at them. When deployed in a makerspace, activities that boost computational thinking are very valuable for students and the best part is they usually don’t even realize that their developing this skill because it does not need to be spelled out as something to focus on. It just happens when kids are put in conducive environments and given favorable projects and tools.
Using Computational Thinking Across the Curriculum
As we have hinted more than once during this post, computational thinking strategies are not just limited to computer science classes or even just to STEM classes. If students were to go through a class or a school year without being willing to try computational thinking, they would be limiting their learning. When students use computational thinking, they are able to design better systems, creatively solve bigger problems, and even dissect human behavior to better understand what somebody is thinking or why they did something. In any subject, computational thinking can be used to show students that they can draw parallels between what they are learning and how they can use a similar technique to solve problems in their other classes and in the real world. It just takes some specific skills and the adopting of some new attitudes and computational thinking will begin to serve students well.
There are four basic computational thinking skills that students can employ in all classes across the curriculum. These include algorithmic thinking, decomposition, abstraction, and pattern recognition. Algorithmic thinking occurs whenever students create or use a well-defined series of steps to achieve a desired outcome. Decomposition is when students break down a complicated problem into its components and work out one component at a time. Abstraction occurs when students remove the unnecessary details of a problem to develop more of a generic solution by uncomplicating the matter at hand. And, finally, pattern recognition is when students recognize patterns in their problem solving quests, analyze the trends in data, and use the information they find to work out solutions. As you could probably guess, all four of these ways of thinking can be effectively used by students in any grade and in any subject or discipline.
To better learn these skills while employing computational thinking in the classroom, students can start by adopting some new attitudes to help smooth the transition and increase the likelihood of problem-solving success. Traits like persistence, experimentation, communication, collaboration, and curiosity all help students leverage computational thinking in the most effective way possible. In any classroom or subject, starting with project-based learning is a surefire way to give kids the chance to flex these traits. The truth is that there is probably already a lot of computational thinking going on in your classroom, especially if there is already a focus on STEM, critical thinking, or PBL. By simply demanding a greater focus on the computational aspect, teachers can help create powerful learning experiences that can accelerate any modern classroom and prepare students for what lies ahead.
Introducing Computational Thinking Early
There’s no rule that says kids have to wait until they’re engaged in higher-level learning to begin trying higher-level thinking. While most kids will utilize some very basic forms of computational thinking from the get-go, educators can work with them to help refine their approaches to problem solving and introduce more concrete examples of how they can expand their creative skills even further. In the early grades, some of the best computational thinking occurs when students are looking for learning. We talked about one of the key skills related to computational thinking being curiosity. This is especially true in early education when students are more in tune with natural exploration. If teachers can take advantage of this and have students apply computational thinking to their exploration, even by pointing out simple patterns and sorting, it will greatly help them build these skills down the road.
For whatever reason, patterns resonate with young children, which creates a perfect opportunity to weave this into teaching computational thinking skills. Even in the games they play (many of which are tech-based and found in app stores), kids have to utilize computational thinking, which, if they’re going to be playing these games, is not the worst thing that could happen. Kids also respond positively to game-based learning in large part because they simply think they are playing and not learning. Parents can teach computational thinking in other ways as well rather than sitting their children down and somehow indicating that they should be learning something. Creating mazes or treasure maps is a great way to start formulating computational skills in small kids as their memory is forced to work harder and they’re forced to draw on specific skills to remember key points in order to find the treasure. Computational thinking in real-world situations essentially works the same way.
Most young children have some sort of an idea of what a robot is and, even if they don’t, showing them a quick picture and giving a brief description usually lights up the idea bulb enough. An interesting way to illustrate computational thinking is to explain to children that robots are machines that need humans to tell them what to do. Once they understand that, we can tell them that robots can also respond to commands given in other formats, which, of course, mean in the form of codes. Parents can teach kids that robots don’t have brains like we do, but their brains are programmed to learn differently and from different cues. Ideally, kids will begin to put it together that coding is an extremely important part of modern-day life and start thinking in a similar way when they attempt to solve problems. At a young age, it’s not necessary to present kids with actual coding challenges, but games like this that mimic higher-level thinking will drastically help improve their computational thinking and, later on, that will be a huge benefit.
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