TERC Blog

Computational Thinking Resources and Examples

Written by Teon Edwards, Michael Cassidy, Jim Hammerman | Aug 13, 2020 2:51:26 PM

Did you know TERC works in Computational Thinking (CT) education?

At TERC we integrate CT into STEM education across grade levels and in both formal and informal settings. And we help educators explore what CT can look like in STEM learning environments, both with and without coding. Check out the projects showcasing our work in CT integration, research methods and assessments, and much more.

Computational Thinking Resources and Examples

CodePlay

Through a Researcher Practitioner Partnership (RPP) between Braintree Public Schools and EdGE, the team is building CodePlay—a strong foundation of teachers and suite of materials for the teaching and learning of CT—in upper elementary and middle schools across Braintree MA, considering a broad audience of diverse learners with cognitive differences.

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Building Systems from Scratch

We know that students learn from playing educational games. Building Systems from Scratch believes there is more joy and empowerment, and deeper learning when students design the games themselves.

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Data Clubs

Developing data science materials and activities for after-school and summer experiences. Data Club's goal is to introduce middle school youth to the power of data by giving them simple tools for visualizing and analyzing data on topics they care about.

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IDATA

IDATA engages middle and high school students in designing software to make astronomy accessible to people with blindness or visual impairments.

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INFACT

INFACT is designing, implementing, and studying a comprehensive program for inclusive CT for grades 3-8, focusing on the cognitive assets of neurodiverse learners and building in supports for learners with a wide variety of differences in attention, metacognition, and self-regulation.

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Zoombinis

This project leverages the existing Zoombinis game by studying the development of players’ CT skills, especially problem decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithm design.

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Designing Biomimetic Robots 

Designing Biomimetic Robots project will develop and study an education program that integrates science, engineering, and computing by engaging students in biomimicry design challenges. In these challenges, students will first study the natural world to learn how animals and plants accomplish different tasks. Then, they will engineer a robot that is inspired by what they learned.

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Hands On! Article

TERC researchers surveyed a group of teachers to gain a better understanding of how teachers think about and define computational thinking.

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Computational Thinking Blog Series

In this five part blog post series you'll read about the findings of Mike Cassidy and Teon Edwards as they spent part of the last few years exploring different definitions and various peoples’ understandings of computational thinking.

Navigate to blog posts in this series here: