Computational Thinking

I forgot where I read that schools should be teaching computational thinking across the curriculum rather than saving it for computer science. 

Of course being me, I needed to determine exactly what is meant by computational thinking.  After all, computational thinking is usually associated with computer science because it is the way programmers break down a problem in order to create a solutions.

Computational thinking is broken down into four sections.  It is defined as being able to processes, data, or problems into smaller, more manageable pieces.  It requires a person to find patterns and trends in that data along with identifying what created these patterns.  The final step is to create step by step instructions for solving the original and similar problems.  In other words, decompose the problem, recognize the pattern, focus on the important information only or abstraction, and creating the solution.

We can see how to use it in Math but what about other subjects.  In literature, students can break a poem down to analyze its meter, rhyme, structure, tone, diction, etc.  In Economics, it is possible to find the cycles of rises and falls of a country's economy.  In cooking, people create recipes which are step by step instructions.  In chemistry, it is possible to explain the rules for chemical bonding.  Each of these matches a step of computational thinking.

Other examples found in education in areas other than math can be:

1.  For civics, government, or history look at the American justice system system to identify problems and propose solutions so it is more equitable and fair.

2. In P.E. decompose LeBron James's dunk using motion tracking data to understand his throws better.

3.  Back to History, students can create their own civilizations, selecting natural resources, and technologies to see how they grow over the years based only on those two factors.

4. What about creating 3 dimensional amusement parks based on the human body with blood cells represented by bumper cars, and neural networks based on zip lines.

5.  Analyze real world earthquake data in science to determine where the most seismic activity occurs so as to determine how much the plates contribute to them.

6. In Math, have students prepare a list of draft choices for a fantasy football or basketball league by looking analyzing performance data.

If you'd like to learn more about it, google offers a nice class on computational thinking while you can find lesson plans here for math, science, social studies and ELA.  I took a look at some of the lesson plans and they look nice. Although, they are geared for upper elementary, they could easily be adjusted and used in middle school and high school.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.