Erica Huang

Incorporating computational thinking – secondary mathematics teachers’ perspectives

Contact Author: Erica Huang (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Dept. of Curriculum & Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 1Z4, Canada

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Incorporating computational thinking (CT) in K-12 education has gained momentum in recent years. As part of a global curriculum reform to include CT and coding, the Ministry of Education in British Columbia (BC), Canada also introduced CT and coding to the K-12 curriculum in 2016. Coding is added as a suggested activity from Grade 6 to 12 in mathematics and is seen as a vehicle to teach CT. The curriculum describes CT as “a thought process that uses pattern recognition and decomposition to describe an algorithm in a way that a computer can execute” (BC Ministry of Education, 2016), based on Wing’s (2011) influential work. This study explores how BC secondary mathematics teachers understand CT and incorporate it in their classrooms.

Leanne Robertson

Computational thinking in Australian primary schools

Contact Author: Leanne Robertson (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Sydney School of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney, Sydney NSW 2006, Australia

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Implementation of Digital Technologies (DT) is mandatory in Australian primary schools. Computational thinking (CT), a problem-solving approach that uses human knowledge and digital technologies to address problems, is part of the DT curriculum.

Aims for this research include identification of professional learning (PL) to support teachers to develop knowledge and resources needed to implement CT aspects of DT.