Revision notes

To Yasmin:

I’m feeling like the heart of the argument is in the relationship between computer science and comptuational thinking. CT is asked to be too much–to capture the core of what makes CS valuable

I think we should avoid the “many justifications for CS” line of argument; it’s been done already and doesn’t get to the inside story, I think.

computing is introduced “under the umbrella of CT.” emphasis on all children. (Really? Does this undercut us?)

“more recent efforts also include creative expression, social justice, and critical inquiry, leading to a revaluation of what it means for learners to be digitally literate in the 21st century.” -> This is the core argument. Through practice we have found wat is most theoretically-important.

In this paper, we: review the current landscape, discuss different framings of computational thinking to include an understanding of the values, biases, and histories embedded in digital technologies, and propose a more encompassing focus on computational literacies for K-12 computing education. We also outline directions for educational research, teaching and policy to realize this broader vision. [132 words]

UNPACKING COMPUTATIONAL THINKING SOLVING PROBLEMS: Which problems? Construed on what terms? DESIGNING SYSTEMS: To do what? Defined by whom? –> Anyon, etc. research relevant here. UNDERSTANDING HUMAN BEHAVIOR: From what position? Is this the surveillance state?

JOBS: “everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer because it teaches how you to think." –> Thorndike’s argument again? –> Maybe the most useful way of accepting this statement

On p. 2 (“Indeed, computational thinking…”), we switch back to CT without explaning the role it plays in the spread of CS. This seems like a central part of the argument we need to address. –> Possible answer: We have been looking for how to connect CS to broader sociocultural goals. CT tries to do this, but it’s really only a definition from the CS side of things. Not really working as a boundary object. Critical and interdisciplinary educators don’t see how it fits into their priorities. Meanwhile, the CS community worries about losing control of the definition of CS because they feel it will be misunderstood or appropriated into ersatz cs (a well-founded fear).

“to every child’s analytical ability” analytic suggests instrumental approach to education.

At “HERE,” we shift from summary to critique without noting the shift.

At heart, I’m after cultivating computational subjectivity, a Deweyian self-regard as being comptuationally literate.

The question of how we frame comptuer science (and the role of comptuatioanl thinking in this framing) surfaces (in a DBR sense) and helps to frame our broader conception of education. Is it a manufacturing process, in which value is added to raw materials, with pre-defined outcomes? Or is it a social opening of lifeworlds, inviting all youth into possible futures? If we accept the latter, we should also accept that education is part of a long trajectory which can in the end only be assessed by the subjectivites it produces.

This means decentering academic computer scientists as the

What is it about the people doing basic research at the leading edge of a field that qualities them to define the field? It’s not their often-narrow expertise; it’s the fact that they are most central in the communities of practice which constitute the field. We don’t need CS orthodoxy in K-12 CS education; we need to be actively cultivating more vibrant and diverse communities of practice able to frame and evaluate their own goals.

Let’s return to the infrastructure. This is where it all happens…………

SO WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?

Explain what computational thinking does for CS re: K-12 Education.
Explain why it hasn’t been quite successful.
Explain why computational literacies might work better.
Explain the stakes of this shift for CS and for K-12 education. It’s the right time for this. An idea whose time has come.

Original NRC workshops on CT questioned whether it was just programming, or whether it was something more. This history should be reflected there.

It’s not just programming; it’s the abstract thinking that goes into programming. This might not be the right direction. The Royal Society’s definition represents the learner in information-processing terms, recognizing computation in the world and applying tools to analyze and understand the world.

CS Principles focuses on practices and big ideas.

What is CT for? Why are we talking about CT instead of CS?

“in research and practice today [computational thinking and computational literacy] are often used interchangeably.” (Grover & Pea, 2013) Literacy as a bland big-tent noun that everybody can live with.

“abstraction as CT’s keystone (distinguishing it from other types of thinking) is undisputed”

The push toward abstraction is grounded in outdated claims about transfer and the implicit assumption that school prepares students for life rather than

So the story up to 2013 was: - not just programming; the key is the abstract thinking around information processes, reified through programming and other activities. - defined in terms of practices and big ideas.

THE BIG SHIFT IS THINKING ABOUT WHAT CT IS FOR.

============ PARKING LOT

Through Thorndike’s research on transfer, he argued that / showed that learning Latin didn’t increase general intelligence rather transfer requires common ground.

Transfer might be helpfully recast with respect to figured worlds. What people recognize in a situation (e.g. the features salient to potential transfer) is figured, and their identities (and therefore the subject positions which shape and constrain them) play a role in the figuring (dialogism). Concretely, phenomena like stereotype threat make it more likely that transfer will not occur because in the world of students suffering from stereotype threat will understand a problem as “dangerous possibility of being found out or defined as illegitimate” rather than as “interesting opportunity to play with ideas.”

I need to address what I mean by the difference between ‘situated’ and ‘sociocultural’.

FOR PAULO AND YIPU: For the ICLS paper, revise the analysis to center SEMs pointing both directions, and make the point that the validity of either depends on an assumption of causality which can best be established through qualitative analysis.

Then introduce the qualitative approach through case studies.

Let’s head straight for the journal article now, bite off what we can for the conference, and then present against the larger narrative.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SITUATED AND SOCIOCULTURAL? I think the key difference between situated and sociocultural is that the argument is emic, positioned from within the CS education community, whose primary concern has been the learning of CS. Siutated and sociocultural approaches both recognize the centrality of practice and socially-enacted identity. But they function differently as boundary objects for talking across fields. As I understand it, ‘situated’ speaks to the structure of such learning, whereas sociocultural speaks more to the meaning of this learning from broader perspectives. I’m currently doing some writing around these ideas, arguing that one reason computational thinking feels lacking is that it’s the CS community’s foray into broader educational goals while trying to keep control over how learning is defined.