Jul
2021
Computational Thinking
Computational thinking is one of the biggest buzzwords in education—it’s even been called the ‘5th C’ of 21st century skills.
Document-based questions have long been a staple of social studies classrooms
Since the human brain is essentially wired to recognize patterns, computational thinking—somewhat paradoxically—doesn’t necessarily require the use of computers at all.
In a 2006 paper for the Association for Computing Machinery, computer scientist Jeanette Wing wrote a definition of computational thinking that used terms native her field—even when she was citing everyday examples. Thus, a student preparing her backpack for the day is “prefetching and caching.” Finding the shortest line at the supermarket is “performance modeling.” And performing a cost-benefit analysis on whether it makes more sense to rent versus buy is running an “online algorithm.” “Computational thinking will have become ingrained in everyone’s lives when words like algorithm and precondition are part of everyone’s vocabulary,” she writes.
three main steps:
Looking at the data: Deciding what’s worth including in the final data set, and what should be left out. What are the different tools that can help manipulate this data—from GIS tools to pen and paper?
Looking for patterns: Typically, this involves shifting to greater levels of abstraction—or conversely, getting more granular.
Decomposition: What’s a trend versus what’s an outlier to the trend? Where do things correlate, and where can you find causal inference?
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more on critical thinking in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=critical+thinking