Pragmatic Scaffolding for Computational Thinking Using Text Structures Theoretical and Empirical Lenses on K-12 Classrooms

DOI: 10.5176/2251-2195_CSEIT17.68

Authors: Kay Wijekumar

Abstract: Teaching K-12 students computational thinking is the latest craze among scientists and is supposed to revolutionize critical thinking and improve the science, technology, engineering, and math interest pipeline. A slew of teaching plans, support materials, and curricula have been designed, developed, and promoted for use in classrooms worldwide. In this paper I argue that the foundations of computational thinking principles are sound and valid. However, the instructional approach is not transparent, developmentally appropriate, and lacks guiding scaffolds. One solution to these problems is to use a long-standing approach to strategic comprehension based on text structures – comparison, cause(s) for problem(s) and solution(s), sequence, and description. To showcase the usefulness of the text structures in computational thinking I present examples for every step of the Google computational thinking lessons explaining how the traditional approach can be made very useful to all students by including the teaching of text structures prior to or during computational thinking lessons.

Keywords: computational thinking; text structure strategy; strategic memory; pedagogy; instructional plans