What is Computational Thinking?
Computational thinking is understood as the development of skills and knowledge in how to apply computers and technology to systematically solve problems. Computational thinking has been acknowledged as one key aspect in the taxonomy of engineering education and implied in multiple ABET student outcomes. Moreover, many introductory engineering courses worldwide have a component of programming or computational thinking. A preliminary study of enculturation to the engineering profession found that computational thinking was deemed a critical area of development at the early stages of instruction. No existing computational thinking framework was found to fully meet the needs of engineers, based on the expertise of researchers at three different institutions and the aid of a comprehensive literature review, a new model for computational thinking for engineers was created. Also, a revised version of a computational thinking diagnostic was developed and renamed the engineering computational thinking diagnostic (ECTD). The five computational thinking factors of the ECTD are (1) Abstraction, (2) Algorithmic Thinking and Programming, (3) Data Representation, Organization, and Analysis, (4) Decomposition, and (5) Impact of Computing. The goal of the development of the ECTD is to capture the entry and exit skill levels of engineering students in an engineering program. The ECTD has been validated and is ready for dissemination. We welcome collaborators of this research and teaching efforts.
Acknowledgement:
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant RFEs:1917359, 1949880, and 1917352