Share Paper: Preparing Teachers to Capture and Assess Evidence of Computational Thinking

  1. Kevin Oliver, North Carolina State University, United States
  2. Jennifer Houchins, North Carolina State University, United States
Thursday, June 27 10:45 AM-11:45 AM De Dam 1

Abstract: As computational thinking (CT) approaches filter into teacher education and schools, teachers should be educated about CT and its underlying competencies (e.g., decomposition, abstraction, algorithmic thinking) to inform appropriate assessments. Teachers benefit from opportunities to synthesize appropriate competencies across popular frameworks and reflect on where CT processes may already be found in specific curricula, particularly for non-STEM disciplines where connections are under-examined (e.g., summarizing main ideas in texts as “abstraction” in literacy instruction, researching and charting causes leading to historical events as “algorithmic thinking” in history instruction). With an understanding of how their content and pedagogical approaches support CT, teachers ...