This is the homepage of the “Computational Thinking” project. This notion, as established by S. Papert and J. Wing, describes the ability to solve problems by partitioning, modeling, abstraction and generalization. “Computational Thinking” focuses on a conceptual understanding of human thinking in the sense of information processing. Among other research in the general area of “Computational Thinking”, we will work on the realization of the school project described below.

School project (“Denken verstehen lernen”)

The goal is the development of a new school subject called “Computational Thinking” (German: “Informatisches Denken”). Since these are elementary skills like literacy and numeracy, the school project begins in elementary school. Again, the focus is on a conceptual understanding of information processing rather than on teaching specific technologies.

There are already several like-minded initiatives abroad, like Computing at School (UK) and Code.org (US).

We plan to realize the school project in the following steps:

• Develop a curriculum based on Code.org
• Offer teaching to associate elementary schools
• Scientifically evaluate results
• Follow-up program after project completion

Updates

• We prepared university students to teach our curriculum.

• Our curriculum is currently offered as a course at associate schools.

Supporters

The school project (“Denken verstehen lernen”) is kindly supported by the Vector Stiftung.

Participating Team Members

Julian Jabs

Klaus Ostermann

Publications

News