Computational thinking is the process of expressing a problem in a way that a computer can solve. In general, there are four various ways that computational thinking can be done. These four ways are decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithmic thinking.

Although computational thinking is dealt with in the realm of computer science. Everyone thinks computationally at one time or another especially in school. Awareness of these subconscious strategies can help people to know how they think at times as well as to be aware of the various ways in which thinking is possible.

Decomposition

Decomposition is the process of breaking a large problem down into smaller and smaller parts or problems. The benefit of this is that by addressing all of the created little problems you can solve the large problem.

In education decomposition can show up in many ways. For teachers, they often have to break goals done into objectives, and sometimes down into procedures in a daily lesson plan. Seeing the big picture of the content students need and breaking it down into pieces that students can comprehend is critically to education such as with chunking.

For the student, decomposition involves breaking down the parts of a project such as writing a paper. The student has to determine what to do and how it helps to achieve the completion of their project.

Pattern Recognition

Pattern recognition has to refer to how various aspects of a problem have things in common. For a teacher, this may involve the development of a thematic unit. Developing such a unit requires the teacher to see what various subjects or disciplines have in common as they try to create the thematic unit.

For the student, pattern recognition can support the development of  shortcuts. Examples include seeing similarities in assignments that need to be completed and completing similar assignments together.

Abstraction

Abstraction  is the ability to remove irrelevant information from a problem. This is perhaps the most challenging form of thinking to develop because people often fall into the trap that everything is important.

For a teacher, abstractions involves teaching only the critical information that is in the content and not stressing the small stuff. This is not easy especially when the  teacher has a passion for their subject. This often blinds them to trying to share only the most relevant information about their field with their students.

For students, abstraction involves being able to share the most critical information. Students are guilty of the same problems as teachers in that they share everything when writing or presenting. Determining what is important requires the development of an opinion to judge the relevance of something. This is a skill that is hard to find among graduates.

Algorithmic Thinking

Algorithmic thinking is being able to develop a step-by-step plan to do something. For teachers, this happens everyday through planning activities and leading a class. Planning may be the most common form of thinking for the teacher.

For students, algorithmic thinking is somewhat more challenging. It is common for younger people to rely heavily on intuition to accomplish tasks. This means that they did something but they do not know how they did it.

Another common mistake for young people is doing things through brute force. Rather than planning, they will just keep pounding away until something works. As such, it is common for students to do things the “hard way” as the saying goes.

Conclusion

Computational thinking is really how humans think in many situations in which emotions are not the primary mover. As such, what is really happening is not that computers are thinking as much as they are trying to model how humans think. In education, there are several situations. In which computational thinking can be employed for success.