Beyond Computer Science: Computational Thinking ...

Beyond Computer Science: Computational Thinking Across Disciplines Amber Settle (moderator)

Debra S. Goldberg

Valerie Barr

DePaul University 243 S. Wabash Avenue Chicago, IL 60604 +1 (312) 362-5324

University of Colorado Boulder 430 UCB Boulder, CO 80309 +1 (303) 492-7514

Union College 807 Union Street Schenectady, NY 12308 +1 (518) 388-8361

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

SUMMARY In her influential CACM article, Jeannette Wing argues that computational thinking is an emerging basic skill that should become an integral part of every child’s education [14]. The potential impact of any approach for incorporating computational thinking into the curriculum is limited by the low enrollment in computing classes and the homogeneous population choosing these classes. While there are continuing efforts to draw students into computing courses, a complementary approach is to bring computational thinking into courses already taken by a diverse set of students. Because computing is transforming society and impacting many areas of study, providing students with meaningful exposure to computational thinking in other fields can be done without compromising existing learning goals. Modifying the K-12 curriculum to include a stronger emphasis on computational thinking has great potential. This effort is difficult in the U.S. however, since computer science is not a core high school topic and there are too few K-12 computing teachers to implement a national-scale computing requirement [2]. Projects that work to integrate computational thinking into existing discipline-specific courses show promise in overcoming these barriers [4, 5, 8, 15]. A comprehensive set of K-12 teacher resources has been developed jointly by the Computer Science Teachers Association and the International Society for Technology in Education [1]. The current emphasis by K-12 educators on 21st Century Skills provides a natural entry for incorporating computational thinking across the curriculum. The need for teaching computational thinking continues past secondary education. Spurred by funding from the National Science Foundation, researchers have considered how to revamp the undergraduate curriculum to place a greater emphasis on these concepts. A number of NSF-funded projects have focused on finding ways to enhance computational thinking in undergraduate courses outside the standard computing curriculum [3, 6, 9, 13]. In this panel we discuss several projects that have worked to integrate computational thinking into the secondary and undergraduate curriculum in disciplines outside of computing such as art, astronomy, biology, economics, English, geology, Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). ITiCSE’13, July 1–3, 2013, Canterbury, England, UK. ACM 978-1-4503-2078-8/13/07. .

government, kinesiology, history, music, and sociology. We will summarize the primary challenges and lessons learned. Following the description of our projects we will have an open discussion about overcoming challenges, what care should be taken to incorporate computing into other disciplines without sacrificing important traditions, and alternative and complementary approaches such as creating complete computational tracks within other disciplines.

Categories and Subject Descriptors K.3.2 [Computers and Education]: Computer and Information Science Education – curriculum.

General Terms Design, Human Factors, Standardization.

Keywords Computational thinking, undergraduate, K-12, biology, economics, English, language arts, visual arts, humanities, science.

1. AMBER SETTLE In the NSF-funded Computational Thinking across the Curriculum project at DePaul University we focused on modifying existing general education courses to teach computational thinking concepts in context. During the first year ten faculty members from the College of Computing and Digital Media modified courses from cryptography to screenwriting, developing a framework for understanding computational thinking in diverse contexts. In the next year, eight additional faculty members from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences developed materials for courses in the sciences and humanities. Over the life of the project faculty from eight different departments or schools modified 19 courses across five different areas in the Liberal Studies Program [11]. Through a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) supplement three teachers from the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools extended the project into the K-12 curriculum, modifying a high school computer science, a high school Latin, and a middle school computer science class. Their work inspired modifications of high school English, history, and visual arts classes during the following year by three additional teachers [12]. In this portion of the panel I describe some of the changes to courses outside of computing including an undergraduate Russian history course and a high school English course.

2. DEBRA S. GOLDBERG The Engaging Computer Science in Traditional Education (ECSITE, pronounced “excite”) program, funded by an NSF GK-12 grant, brings computer science into non-computing K-12 classrooms [7]. To date, we have worked with teachers in six middle schools and ten high schools across four school districts. Subject areas have included art, biology, health education, mathematics, music, and social studies courses as well as a Native American focus program. Bringing computational content into traditional, existing courses is challenging because these courses typically must address a number of standards or requirements specified by the school district and/or school. We strive to be flexible and work closely with classroom teachers so that our program is responsive to the differing needs of teachers and content areas. Our goal is to deliver required content using a computational approach that improves student understanding and exposes students to methods and techniques of computer science. In this panel I describe some of the ECSITE curriculum, and indications that it can be sustained and disseminated.

3. VALERIE BARR Union College carried out an NSF-funded project: Create a Campus-Wide Computation Initiative. There were two primary motivations for this project. First, in addition to Wing’s view of computational thinking, we were motivated by Seymour Papert’s bidirectional view [10] that work at the intersection of disciplines can both provide a solution to a problem as well as better reveal the relationship between the problem and the solution. Second, we thought it important that students gain experience using computing in discipline-appropriate ways and be encouraged to develop a proper foundation in computing.

4. REFERENCES [1] CSTA 2011 http://www.csta.acm.org/Curriculum/sub/CurrFiles/472.11C TTeacherResources_2ed-SP-vF.pdf [2] Cooper, S., et al. 2010. K-12 Computational Learning. In Communications of the ACM, 53:11, pp. 27 – 29. [3] Dierbach, C. et al. 2011. A Model for Piloting Pathways for Computational Thinking in a General Education Curriculum. In Proceedings of the 42nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Dallas, Texas. [4] Eglash, R. et al. 2006. Culturally Situated Design Tools: Ethnocomputing from Field Site to Classroom. American Anthropologist, 108:2, pp. 347-362. [5] Form D. and Lewitter F. 2011. Ten Simple Rules for Teaching Bioinformatics at the High School Level. PLoS Computational Biology, 7:10. [6] Fox, E. et al. 2008. LIKES (Living in the KnowlEdge Society). In Proceedings of the 39th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Portland, Oregon. [7] Goldberg, D. et al. 2012. Engaging Computer Science in Traditional Education: the ECSITE project. In ITiCSE 2012: The 17th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, Haifa, Israel. [8] Lin, C.-C., et al. 2009. Embedding computer science concepts in K-12 science curricula. In Proceedings of the 40th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Chattanooga, Tennessee.

There were three components to this project: 1) changes to the introductory CS curriculum which opened it up to all students on campus; 2) the addition of intermediate level CS courses that can appeal to a wide range of students; 3) incorporation of a computational component in non-CS courses. In the panel I will focus on this last element.

[9] Martin, F. et al. 2009. Joining Computing and the Arts at a Mid-Size University. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 24:6.

To date we have worked with twenty-eight faculty members from 17 departments and programs (including three institutions in addition to Union) who have each incorporated a computational component into at least one course. In addition to the course modifications, various of the collaborations have resulted in publishable results from student research projects, educational software tied to particular applications that will be made publicly available for use in high school and college courses, studentfocused software user manuals, and new tools for researchers. In addition, a majority of students enrolled in the modified courses report that the computational component helped them learn the disciplinary material. The departments and programs involved include astronomy, biology, classics, economics, English, experimental humanities, geology, history, music, political science, and psychology.

[11] Perković, L., et al. 2010. A Framework for Computational Thinking across the Curriculum. In ITiCSE 2010: The 15th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, Ankara, Turkey.

[10] Papert, S. 1996. An Exploration in the Space of Mathematics Educations. International Journal of Computers for Mathematical Learning, 1:1, pp. 95-123.

[12] Settle, A. et al. 2012. Infusing Computational Thinking into the Middle- and High-School Curriculum. In ITiCSE 2012: The 17th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, Haifa, Israel. [13] Way, T. et al. 2010. A Distributed Expertise Model for Teaching Computing Across Disciplines and Institutions. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Frontiers in Education: Computer Science and Computer Engineering, Las Vegas, Nevada. [14] Wing, J. 2006. Computational Thinking. In Communications of the ACM, 49:3, pp. 33-35. [15] Wolz, U. et al. 2010. Computational Thinking via Interactive Journalism in Middle School. In Proceedings of the 41st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.