A Revaluation of Computational Thinking in K–12 Education: Moving Toward Computational Literacies
In this episode I unpack Kafai and Proctor’s (2021) publication titled “A revaluation of computational thinking in K–12 education: Moving toward computational literacies,” which summarizes three key framings of computational thinking and proposes computational literacies in place of computational thinking.
-
Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
each week of this podcast is either an
episode with a guest or multiple guests
or a solo episode where i unpack some
scholarship in relation to computer
science education in this week's
particular episode i'm unpacking a paper
titled a revaluation of computational
thinking and k-12 education colon moving
toward computational literacies and this
paper was written by yasmine kefai and
chris proctor here's an abstract for
this paper quote over the past decade
initiatives around the world have
introduced computing into k-12 education
under the umbrella of computational
thinking while initial implementations
focused on skills and knowledge for
college and career readiness more recent
framings included situated computational
thinking identity participation creative
expression and critical computational
thinking political and ethical impacts
of computing justice this expansion
reflects a revaluation of what it means
for learners to be computational
literate in the 21st century we review
the current landscape of k-12 computing
education discuss interactions between
different framings of computational
thinking and consider how an
encompassing framework of computational
literacies clarifies the importance of
computing for broader k-12 educational
priorities as well as key unresolved
issues end quote bar to summarize this
paper into a single sentence i'd say
that this paper summarizes three key
framings of computational thinking and
it proposes computational literacies in
place of computational thinking alright
so this paper can be found in the show
notes which is at jaredoleary.com where
the hundreds if not thousands of free
computer science education resources
including a link to boot up pd.org which
is the non-profit that i create 100 free
elementary coding curriculum for in the
show notes you'll find links to other
podcasts that are relevant to this as
well as a direct link to the paper
itself which at the time of this
recording is available for free and it's
only about five pages long six pages if
you include the references i will
however say that i highlighted more than
i did not highlight when reading through
this particular paper i really enjoyed
this episode so if yes mean and or chris
are listening to this i would love to
have you on to talk more about this as
well as your other research and
publications that you've done alright so
this paper begins with a very quick
introduction into computational thinking
talking about jeanette wing's definition
of computational thinking and then doing
a very quick overview of how it's kind
of changed or evolved over the years in
particular the authors argue that
computational thinking was initially
framed around problem solving with
computers however some scholars and
educators have suggested that we should
instead focus more on quote
understanding of the values biases and
histories embedded in computational
technologies and cultures which run on
computers such an expanded framing of
computational thinking will include
pragmatic social cultural and political
dimensions in order to address critical
aspects of inequalities caused or
exacerbated by the societal impact of
computing and the growing prominence of
cs as an academic field end quote that
quote is from page two so after the
intro the authors go into a discussion
on the three framings of computational
thinking so the three framings if i were
to summarize them very quickly are
cognitive framings situated framings and
then critical framings all right so
here's another quote from page two that
summarizes each of these three quote one
cognitive framings viewing learning as
the acquisition of knowledge and skills
and emphasizing preparation for future
careers two situated framings viewing
learning as identity formation through
participation in disciplinary practices
and emphasizing creative expression and
social engagement in digital media and
three critical framings viewing learning
as developing an understanding of how
realities are shaped and emphasizing
strategies for resisting marginalization
and oppression end quote alright so in
the following couple of pages the
authors kind of dive a little bit deeper
into each one of these three so in
cognitive framings there's a tendency to
focus on students outcomes without
paying attention to how their learning
is embedded within social and cultural
context so this specifically focuses on
what students are learning so for
example like some misconceptions around
programming or some of the challenges
that they experience when they are
programming or like debugging or
something like that but it doesn't
necessarily take into account does the
student feel welcome within that
environment do they feel like they
belong et cetera there's more focusing
on what they know rather than how their
contacts impact what they know and what
they learn on the other hand situated
framings take into account the different
identities in relation to the context in
which learning occurs here's a quote
from pages two and three quote situated
framings of computational thinking
understand learning in terms of identity
practice and participation and see
computing as a vehicle for personal
expression and connecting with others
alongside and intersecting a plurality
of other literacy practices here
applications are focused on connecting
the learning of programming with
students is prior interests including
music storytelling or most often video
games end quote the way the authors
describe situated framings is that
learning is situated within a community
of practice that has some shared goals
and values and the focus is on maybe
kids being able to express themselves
through code or through computing and if
that sounds familiar to you that's
because i've had many guests on who i
would argue use a situated framing of
computational thinking if they were to
promote computational thinking but if we
expand beyond computational thinking and
just think of computing in general
computer science many of the guests have
discussed the desire for students to be
able to express themselves and i have
done so as well so like our curriculum
at boot up is heavily focused on
situated language and learning so one of
the authors that they cite in here james
paul g is a professor of mine i've read
several of his books on this topic so it
heavily informed the curriculum that i
was creating which also heavily informed
the pd that we do at boot up however the
way that we also describe things can
also fall into the category of a
critical framing and it depends on what
way you were to approach the curriculum
that i use or the pd that we facilitate
at buddha alright so a critical framing
is quote contextualizes cognitive and
situated practices within broader
cultural formations such as race gender
class and language one mode of
criticality computing in the world
focuses on understanding the role of
computational infrastructure in society
and particularly its role on reproducing
oppression end quote that's from page
three now if we flip this critical
framing we could also look at the world
within computing culture so for example
taking a look at the sexism that has
gone on within different corporations
such as like in some gaming communities
etc that is a way of looking inside the
culture of computing rather than looking
at how computing impacts cultures
outside of that now the authors do
mention that there is overlap between
these it's not like you just have to be
one or the other so while i mention that
i'm heavily influenced within the
situated framings and scholars within
that area we also have the opportunity
through the curriculum and the pd to
dive into the cognitive or the critical
framing it really depends on how you use
the curriculum because they're designed
for multiple use cases rather than just
hey everybody you're all going to learn
this exact same thing and create the
same product through this project
instead it's more of here is an idea or
a foundation that you can build off of
and you can explore this in different
ways it could focus more on your
identities as an individual and maybe
even some of the oppression that you
experience or people that you know or it
could focus on your interests or it
could just focus on exploring different
concepts and practices within computer
science it depends on how you as the
learner explores the resources but it
also depends on how somebody facilitates
the use of those resources for example
are the example projects a model or a
mandate are you creating the exact same
thing and replicating it or are using as
the model to say oh here are some ideas
but i'm going to change it and make it
my own while i prefer the latter i
prefer to use it as a model that you can
remix and expand and make your own to
make it interesting i have seen other
educators use the resources that i've
created as more of a mandate and just
because i have a preference for one over
the other it doesn't mean that you can't
use it a different way okay so after
this framing of the three different
types of computational thinking the next
section is titled moving toward
computational literacies so they
mentioned that they use the term
literacies to account for like the
different ways that people can engage
with computing rather than just saying
there is one computing literacy and this
use of the term draws from a variety of
different fields such as like learning
sciences and i've seen it in media
studies etc so here's a quote from pages
three and four that actually defines
well what exactly is computational
literacies what does this mean quote we
define computational literacies as a set
of practices situated in a social
cultural context which utilize external
computational media to support cognition
and communication computational
literacies encompass phenomena at scales
from the individual to the societal as
well as connections between three
phenomena and the media which supports
and shapes them end quote okay so let's
kind of break this down a little bit so
the first part we define computational
literacies as set of practices situated
in a social cultural context okay so the
things that you would learn through
computational literacies are relevant
within the real world that's kind of
like one way that you can look at this
so instead of just learning a concept
for the sake of learning a concept it's
oh this is embedded within something you
actually use in social cultural context
so outside of the classroom so rather
than call this a set of concepts it's
saying practices so practices is
something that you do rather than just
conceptualize or understand or think
through so this is much more
action-oriented than the word
computational thinking where you're just
thinking you don't necessarily have an
action associated with that although you
certainly can the wording itself does
not lend itself to a doing but instead
of a conceiving or thinking through okay
so now let's look at the second half of
this sentence so the first part was
talking about practices situated in
social cultural contexts which utilize
external computational media to support
cognition and communication so it's
saying it utilizes external
computational media okay so rather than
just thinking computationally you're
actually using media specifically
computational media in those practices
that you're doing this is very different
computational thinking initially started
as like thinking as a computer scientist
or thinking
as how a computer might solve a problem
and in my opinion it moved so far away
from that that you didn't even need to
think about computers or computer
scientists at all to engage in this very
watered-down version of problem-solving
that happened to be labeled
computational thinking simply because it
has some labels within it that were
related to computer science like
decomposition abstraction algorithms
pattern recognition etc this definition
of computational literacies however
specifically focuses on computational
media so it's bringing it back to
computing not just thinking but the very
last part of this of supporting
cognition and communication i like the
fact that it helps with the thinking
side of things the understanding
cognition but also how to communicate
it's important for people to engage in
computational literacies not just as a
problem-solving tool but to also be able
to communicate things if we go to that
second sentence where it was talking
about the phenomena on the scale from
individual to societal it's important to
be able to communicate as an individual
how computing is relevant to you but
also how it impacts society so for
example if you're going to go into more
of the critical framings of
computational literacies thinking of how
computing can oppress others either
intentionally or unintentionally being
able to communicate that and to be able
to understand how it does that and then
engage in
practices that can have an impact on
that hopefully improve that is important
then the very last part so the quote of
connections between these phenomena and
the media that supports and shapes them
is saying that there's a relationship
between the two so rather than having
unidirectional like this computing
device has an impact on people but
people don't have an impact on computing
it says that there is a relationship
that you need to figure out how one
shapes the other and vice versa and i
think this is very important so after
that little bit of a ramble i'm gonna
read this quote again one more time from
pages three and four quote we define
computational literacies as a set of
practices situated in a social cultural
context which utilize external
computational media to support cognition
and communication computational
literacies encompass phenomena at scales
from the individual to the societal as
well as connections between these
phenomena and the media which supports
and shapes in end quote there's so much
to unpack in that definition and
hopefully that little unpacking that i
did assisted with understanding this but
i really like this framing in it there's
so many meanings that can just be
derived from those two sentences alone
that you could write an entire paper
that just talks about that and the
potential implications of the wording
that is in that particular definition if
however you disagree with this wording
or you think that it should include a b
or c or whatever feel free to reach out
to me i'd love to have you on the show
to kind of unpack this and talk about it
some more there is a contact me button
on my website at jaredoleary.com you can
reach out there all right so the next
page in this section discusses three
core questions about the relationship
between computer science and k-12
education so these questions are related
to whom what and how so the first one
with whom who should learn computer
science now the authors point out that
well i mean it might be pretty
straightforward that everybody should
learn computer science but they
problematize this a bit more because the
discourse tends to be around well
there's not enough people who can fill
the jobs right now so therefore
everybody should learn computer science
but there are many more nuances to
consider than just hey there's open jobs
so therefore everyone needs to learn
this thing because if literally
everybody was qualified to do it there
would not be enough jobs for everybody
to go into that field but then what
about the negative impact on every other
field that doesn't require computer
science here's a quote from page four
quote while technology careers are one
possible endpoint for k-12 cs education
they should not be the only option
instead we also need to include
vocational training civic engagement and
creative expression as possible options
end quote totally agree with that now a
little bit further down in that same
paragraph here's a longer quote that i'm
gonna read and it's a really good quote
also from page four quote from the
perspectives of computational literacies
the cognitive and situated practices
which constitute cs are endemic to a
particular highly privileged community
these practices have been phenomenally
successful but it does not necessarily
follow that the same practices will
serve other communities with their own
goals in the same way does cs for all
imply that everybody ought to change to
accommodate cs or that cs ought to
change to accommodate everybody in our
view there are parallels to the claim
that standard english is for everyone
both in terms of why the claim is
problematic and how we might
productively advance a discussion of
educational priorities in quote so two
weeks ago i did an unpacking scholarship
episode that at the end on my lingering
thoughts and questions i shared that
i shared that computer science might be
a form of colonization on certain
identities or communities or ways of
being or even valuing so the example
that i gave is are we going to force
amish communities to learn cyber
security or is that a form of
colonization if we were to do that so
the way that cs and ct or in this case
cl computational literacies is disgust
comes from a place of privilege at times
and might not always consider whether or
not a community actually values those
goals in the same way and i keep
bringing this back up but pedagogy the
press by paulo ferrari discussion on
dialogue check out chapter three to kind
of learn more about the importance of
actually engaging in a discussion or a
dialogue between oppressor and the
oppressed rather than just making
assumptions and i'll include a link to
that in the show notes now the paragraph
that's right after that also has some
really good quotes in there talking
about the digital divide the halves and
have-nots and access technological
determinism etc so i highly recommend
actually going and reading this paper to
read what's going on there but even
though i've got the majority of this
paper highlighted i can't read all of it
just because of copyright issues and
whatnot so check it out it's on page
four left side starts with paradigms etc
right so the second question on the what
so on the top right corner of page four
the authors discuss how when you define
literacies and what it means as who is
literate and who is not this is a way of
defining what practices are considered
to be legitimate and what are not so
thinking of like laeven wenger's
legitimate peripheral participation
which is a key part of communities of
practice if you haven't read up on that
scholarship it's very interesting and
very seminal maybe i'll do an unpacking
scholarship on that and the authors
mentioned that it's important to think
through these forms of legitimization
because quote such definitions could be
helpful in constructing pathways to
educational opportunity but they could
also contribute to blaming victims for
their own marginalization in our view
the question of what to teach in k-12 cs
need not have a single answer but could
instead have many answers grounded in
the computational literacy practices of
diverse communities and cultures end
quote yeah so that last part in
particular just resonates so much like
i've mentioned many times that i try and
take a multi-perspectivalist approach in
that there are many different ways that
you can engage in computer science
whether it's from a pedagogical
standpoint or a content standpoint or
whatever and so to acknowledge that what
might work for you and the communities
that you work with might not work well
for others is one of the reasons why i
strongly question standards when it is
imposed as everyone should engage in
these concepts and practices in the same
way that i think is problematic however
to argue with myself i also think it's
helpful for teachers who do not have the
ability to kind of to set their own
pathways that align with the needs of
the communities and the students that
they work with the standards can be very
useful for serving as like a landmark to
say oh this is something that might be
useful to explore but we don't
necessarily have to so again treating it
as a model rather than a mandate i think
is a way that you can have your cake and
idiot too with standards so you can
problematize it and say hey this isn't
the only way of conceiving of computer
science but also acknowledging that hey
this is really useful when exploring the
domain of computer science if you don't
have much experience guiding people
through the domain alright so the last
question that they have on here is
related to the how so quote how should
we teach computational thinking should
it be taught as a standalone topic or
integrated within other k-12 classes
despite considerable evidence that
learning computational thinking does
little for students general
problem-solving abilities we noted above
that decontextualized curricula and
assessments dominate current k-12 cs
education initiatives end quote from
page four again that really resonates
and so does the following quote a little
bit further down in the paragraph quote
this approach risks a one-directional
integration of computational thinking
into existing literacies tailoring
instruction to make it relevant to
diverse cultures and identities as
suggested by the metaphor of a leaky
pipeline of stem education without also
locating educational goals in those
cultures and identities and then asking
how or if computation might contribute
end quote yet again just absolutely love
some of these quotes in here i've seen
many many times at different conferences
over the years people talk about oh well
you can use computational thinking for
making music see look at these lyrics
right here we can find loops in here and
we can rewrite these lyrics as an
algorithm okay you can do that however
one of the things that's often not asked
in those discussions is how does that
actually contribute to making music so
as somebody who has multiple degrees in
music education and been around
musicians for the majority of my adult
life i don't know anyone who uses
computational thinking when creating
music and yes i do know several
musicians who compose who are also
programmers including myself but i
literally don't know a single person who
engages in computational thinking
deliberately to make music or who look
at computational thinking go oh wow
that's going to be extremely useful for
writing my next rondo so while yes you
can look at things through a lens of
computational thinking we really got to
consider is this appropriate does this
contribute and how and then also
acknowledging that hey you know these
domains that we're looking at also have
their own ways of thinking and maybe
some of those ways of thinking would be
useful for computer scientists rather
than assuming computer scientists have
the answer that can be applied into
every single domain i'm not saying
everyone who investigates and discusses
computational thinking thinks that way
but it is often framed that way or it
can at least come across that way
unintentionally all right so the last
section in this paper is on priorities
for k12 inquiries so in this are
basically calling for more research on
computational literacies so rather than
just focusing on computational skills
and concepts they would like for more
research to actually focus on student
identities and the communities in which
they live in addition to that we also
need to focus on pedagogies that
consider both the political and ethical
implications of teaching cs and
problematize how having like in a unit
or a module or a course on ethics is
just not enough so fusing together the
situated framings and the critical
framings with the cognitive framings in
order to explore cs more holistically in
a way that's relevant but also is useful
for not only the kids that we work with
but for the world alright so that's a
quick summary of a fairly short paper
but again i highlighted so much in this
paper i do highly recommend taking a
look at it i now want to share some of
my lingering questions and thoughts
related to reading this particular paper
so one of them is i
mention this a little bit but i really
like the way of how the authors move
away from the word thinking toward
literacies the focus on practices makes
this much more actionable and doable
rather than just focusing on cognitive
things so rather than just focusing on
thinking we're actually doing something
with that thinking and it's implied in
the framing of the words that are used
in their definition now i could go on
for a long time about some of my
thoughts about this particular episode
but i've kind of embedded those
throughout this so what i'm curious
about is what are your own thoughts
after hearing the definition of
computational literacies and hopefully
after reading the paper so what i'd
highly recommend is actually going on
social medias or going with your own
social groups and just engaging in a
discussion on this maybe doing like a
little study on this particular paper
and kind of talking about well what does
this mean for our computer science
programs and if it's not computer
science programs and you're just
engaging in computational thinking what
does it mean for that i include a link
to this paper in the show notes which
again you can find at jaredlery.com and
again it's available for free right now
on my website there's contact me button
so feel free to reach out if you'd like
to be a guest on the show and then check
out all the other links to the hundreds
if not thousands of free resources on my
website including the link to boot up
pd.org for another episode and until
then i hope you're staying safe and are
having a wonderful week
Article
Kafai, Y. B., & Proctor, C. (2021). A revaluation of computational thinking in K–12 education: Moving toward computational literacies. Educational Researcher, November.
Abstract
“Over the past decade, initiatives around the world have introduced computing into K–12 education under the umbrella of computational thinking. While initial implementations focused on skills and knowledge for college and career readiness, more recent framings include situated computational thinking (identity, participation, creative expression) and critical computational thinking (political and ethical impacts of computing, justice). This expansion reflects a revaluation of what it means for learners to be computationally-literate in the 21st century. We review the current landscape of K–12 computing education, discuss interactions between different framings of computational thinking, and consider how an encompassing framework of computational literacies clarifies the importance of computing for broader K–12 educational priorities as well as key unresolved issues.”
Author Keywords
Computers and learning, computer science education, critical theory, identity, literacy
My One Sentence Summary
This paper summarizes three key framings of computational thinking and proposes computational literacies in place of computational thinking.
Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts
I like the move away from the word “thinking” to “literacies.”
What are your thoughts about the term “computational literacies” over “computational thinking?”
Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode
Podcasts that are relevant to this episode
Computational Literacies with Michael Horn
In this interview with Michael Horn, we discuss computational literacies vs computational thinking, power in literacy, cultural imperialism, the impact of programming language on identity, the intersections of music and CS, and so much more.
How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
Lifelong Kindergarten with Mitch Resnick
In this interview with Mitch Resnick, we discuss misconceptions people have around the four P’s (Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play) in Mitch’s book, encouraging depth of understanding while playing, what has surprised Mitch during his career, encouraging online communication and collaboration without creating artificial engagement, what Mitch wishes we’d see more of and discuss in CS education, our pet peeves with unplugged activities and computational thinking, accounting for survivorship bias with Scratch, expanding our focus on equity and inclusion to include both the “who” and the “how,” the importance of experimenting and learning through play, and much more.
Mind the Gap: The Illusion of Skill Acquisition in Computational Thinking
In this episode I unpack Bao & Hosseini’s (2023) publication titled “Mind the gap: The illusion of skill acquisition in computational thinking,” which compares learning, perceptions of learning, and confidence among adult learners participating in interactive, video-based, and text-based learning.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
This episode is the start of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 1, which discusses how oppressors maintain control over the oppressed. Following unpacking scholarship episodes discuss what this looks like in education and how educators can adopt a “pedagogy of the oppressed” to break cycles of oppression.
This episode is episode two of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 2, which discusses the “banking” approach to education that assumes students are repositories of information, and then proposes a liberatory approach to education that focuses on posing problems that students and teachers collaboratively solve. If you haven’t listened to the discussion on the first chapter, click here.
This episode is episode three of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 3, which discusses the importance of dialogue when engaging in liberatory practices. This episode builds off the previous unpacking scholarship episodes on chapter one and chapter two, so make sure you listen to those episodes before jumping in here.
This episode is the final episode of a miniseries that unpacks Paulo Freire’s (1970) book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” This particular episode unpacks chapter 4, which synthesizes the concepts introduced in the previous chapters and discusses the difference between anti-dialogical and dialogical practices in education (and at large). This episode builds off the previous unpacking scholarship episodes on chapter one, chapter two, and chapter three so make sure you listen to those episodes before jumping in here.
Situated Language and Learning with Bryan Brown
In this interview Bryan Brown, we discuss the importance of language in education. In particular, we discuss the role of language in teaching and learning, discursive identity, situated language and learning, the importance of representation in education, the role of language on stress, how smartphones and virtual communication platforms (e.g., Zoom) could change learning, and many other topics relevant to CS education and learning.
In this episode I unpack Bresler’s (1995) publication titled “The subservient, co-equal, affective, and social integration styles and their implications for the arts,” which “examines the different manifestations of arts integration in the operational, day-to-day curriculum in ordinary schools, focusing on the how, the what, and the toward what” (p. 33).
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter
Free CS Resources I Have Created
More Content
