Mapping computational thinking mindsets between educational levels with cognitive network science

Strategic Thinking: Educational Use & Cognitive Foundation *

Strategic thinking is at the intellectual core of the calculus for the 21st century, which is not the mathematical calculus that emerged in the 17th century, but rather the logical calculus that was conceived in the same period by Leibniz, one of the two inventors of the mathematical calculus. Leibniz put great emphasis on a universal language to organize concepts, on rules to guide thinking an...

Computational Thinking in Life Science Education

We join the increasing call to take computational education of life science students a step further, beyond teaching mere programming and employing existing software tools. We describe a new course, focusing on enriching the curriculum of life science students with abstract, algorithmic, and logical thinking, and exposing them to the computational "culture." The design, structure, and content o...

Teaching Computational Thinking to Science Majors

This paper describes the development and initial evaluation of a new course ”Introduction to Computational Thinking” taken by science majors to fulfill a college computing requirement. The course was developed by computer science faculty in collaboration with science faculty and it focuses on the role of computing and computational principles in scientific inquiry. It uses Python and Python lib...

Mindsets and Math/Science Achievement

Exploring Core Cognitive Skills of Computational Thinking

Although still innovative and not largely disseminated, Computational Thinking is being considered as a critical skill for students in the 21st century. It involves many skills, but programming abilities seem to be a core aspect since they foster the development of a new way of thinking that is key to the solution of problems that require a combination of human mental power and computing power ...