Articulating a sociocultural framework for designing for learning computational thinking

This conceptual paper develops a socioculturally informed theoretical framework for designing for learning Computational Thinking (CT); with the wider purpose of providing guidance for educational practice. Existing understandings of CT broadly fall into three categories, which have been termed the cognitive, the situated, and the critical approaches. Implicitly, they agree to an engagement condition for CT activities: CT activities necessarily involve engagement with algorithms. All approaches have an individualist focus, even the so-called “situated” one, which emphasizes individual sense-making and personal expression. The individualist focus of prevalent CT understandings is a problem, not least because of its practical implications: Educational activities based on understanding CT individualistically do not adequately support students in learning the cultural practices of developing, using, and critiquing algorithms in interaction with others; practices that are, however, crucial in our highly digitalized contemporary societies. Instead, such support requires a sociocultural conceptualization of CT, focusing on learners' negotiation of meaning in shared practices, development of patterns of participation and of shared repertoires of informational resources, and negotiation of interactional identities. The present article provides this. Drawing on the work of Greeno, CT phenomena are reconceptualized at four levels of increasing time-scale and complexity. For each level, it is explicated what engagement with algorithms consists in from a sociocultural perspective, and what criteria for demonstrating engagement are. The framework encompasses learning activities highlighted by existing approaches to CT but reconceptualize them as interactional practices. Examples of learning activities at each level are provided.