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3.1.7 Computational Thinking: GT Applications Beyond the Math Classroom and Across the Curriculum

Computational Thinking is not just for the technology, math and science classrooms. This presentation will share the many ways GT teachers of subjects other than math and science can help students develop good computational thinking skills while preparing for careers in computer science and a wide variety of other fields of study. Jeannette Wing, head of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University, has provided examples of computational thinking. She argued that "computational thinking has already influenced other disciplines, and promotes the idea that teaching computational thinking can not only inspire future generations to enter the field of computer science but benefit people in all fields. Computational thinking involves breaking a problem into parts and discrete parts, looking for and finding patterns and trends, developing instructions to solve problems, and developing generalizations based on observed patterns, trends which become rules and principles." Computational Thinking is an outgrowth of the larger field of computer science, a field which is impacting every dimension of our lives, how we live, work and how we educate. Students are being impacted individually and as a member of the global community by computer, specifically, and technology, in general. The two fields, gifted education and computer science merge at several points where the emphasis is on depth of thinking, problem solving, collaboration, creativity and design, active learning, and exploration. The fact that all of these are GT skills which can be experienced separate and apart from programming and computers make computational thinking particularly workable with gifted students. The task-commitment, resiliency, detailed, sequential thinking and planning required are skills which can be of unique benefit to the gifted student and will offer a "taste of home" in the GT classroom. In addition, the MakerSpace and problem and project based learning curricular approaches offer additional opportunities for the application of computational thinking by the gifted student. As gifted students are prepared for the changing world impacted by technology, the interdisciplinary nature of computational thinking offers numerous curricular possibilities for gifted students desiring careers in almost any field of study. This presentation will focus on those strategies appropriate for implementing computational thinking in the Kindergarten middle and high school curriculum.

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