For some people, the term “Computational Thinking” (CT) invokes the idea of emotionless decision making and the application of inflexible procedures. The modern interpretation of CT and how it is being used in education, across different subject areas, is a much more complex, human process. Students at The British School of Nanjing are using the foundational elements of CT to solve problems, make logical decisions, find patterns and create procedures which can be applied to help them become more efficient learners.
The main elements of CT are decomposing a problem into its main elements, abstracting to not get lost in the finer details, which then allows patterns to be found from which a set of ordered steps, or an algorithm can be derived.
In preparing the current generation for the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ (caused by the combination of big data, artificial intelligence and robotics) there is a world-wide educational movement that believes that Computational Thinking should become much more front and center in schools.