What is it about?

In order to effectively integrate computational thinking (CT) across the curriculum, we need to better understand what teachers think about CT in relation to their subject content and pedagogy. The findings from interviews with six computing and mathematics teachers showed that when we shifted a teacher's attention towards a particular subject, his description of CT closely aligned with that subject's dominant pedagogy and content. The same teacher constructed different meanings of CT for different subjects. We also explained how subject framing influence which epistemic resources teachers drew upon to construct their descriptions of CT.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Teachers who see similarities between computational thinking (CT) and a subject’s existing pedagogy and content may feel more comfortable with CT, but they may miss out on how CT can bring a new and significant perspective on the subject. We recommend that professional development on CT focus on distinctive features of CT. Also, we suggest that when teachers experience technology-based activities like robotics or programming, the teacher educator should explicitly name the "thinking" aspects in CT (many of which has achieved consensus). On the other hand, when teacher are invited to connect the "thinking" parts of CT to their subjects, they should be nudged towards considering how to integrate the "computational" aspects, in order to leverage this new perspective.

Perspectives

When the meaning of CT becomes fragmented, it can cause confusion among teachers, which leads to either too narrow a view (CT = programming) or to too vague a view (CT = repackaging of Polya problem solving). This fragmentation may jeopardize efforts to integrate CT across the curriculum in a meaningful way. It is my hope that CT practices can become a normal part of a student's toolkit for approaching a problem or investigating a phenomenon. It is not the only tool, but one that is worth learning.

Wendy Huang
Nanyang Technological University

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Frame Shifting as a Challenge to Integrating Computational Thinking in Secondary Mathematics Education, March 2021, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3408877.3432400.
You can read the full text:

Read

Resources

Contributors

The following have contributed to this page