Com­pu­ta­tional think­ing; it’s not an explicit sub­ject or con­crete idea to be taught to stu­dents, but it is as essen­tial to a child’s edu­ca­tion as learn­ing to read. In their early days stu­dents learn to read so that they can read to learn. Like­wise, stu­dents must learn a way of think­ing so they they might solve prob­lems in a mean­ing­ful and under­stand­ing way. To give stu­dents this expe­ri­ence, they need to learn to think computationally.

What does com­pu­ta­tional think­ing mean, and why is it so impor­tant? Com­pu­ta­tional think­ing is a skill set that requires “using abstrac­tion and decom­po­si­tion when attack­ing a large com­plex task“ (Wing). When stu­dents are faced with a prob­lem they should begin by break­ing the prob­lem up into smaller sub-problems, and using fun­da­men­tal con­cepts to solve them. Jo Boaler illus­trated in her book What’s Math Got To Do Wtih It?,  stu­dents in Amer­ica often learn by rote and under­stand very lit­tle about the prin­ci­ples behind the prob­lems they solve. Each student’s brain is their tool box, and if their tool box is filled with cut outs and sim­ple dia­grams, when a slightly dif­fer­ent prob­lem comes along, they won’t know how to solve it. For this rea­son the approach of com­pu­ta­tional think­ing to prob­lem solv­ing is extremely impor­tant and essen­tial in k-12 education.