Reform and Practice of the Course“Introduction to Computer Science”in Universities Based on the Cultivation of Computational Thinking and Systematic Abilities

Introduction to Computer Science,as one of the fundamental courses in computer-related majors,plays an important role in the cultivation of computer professionals.However,traditional teaching models and content can no longer fully meet the needs of modern information technology development.In response to these issues,this article introduces the concept of computational creative thinking,optimizes course content,adopts exploratory teaching methods,and innovates course assessment methods,aiming to comprehensively enhance students’computational thinking and innovative abilities.By continuously improving and promoting this teaching model,it will undoubtedly promote computer education in universities to a new level.

Teaching Mode of Basic Computer Courses Using Theories and Methods of Computational Thinking

In view of the university computer culture foundation of college course,it is proposed that learners use efficient thinking methods to think.They must get rid of the prejudice of traditional teaching"narrow tool theory",based on computing thinking and university computer culture foundation.This paper proposed how to guide learners to use computing thinking to solve related problems in classroom teaching,introduced the application of computing thinking in computer classroom teaching,and proposed a curriculum with"computing thinking"as the core.The teaching method provides a new model for the university computer basic education with the goal of improving students'thinking ability.

Research on the Training Mode of College Students’Computational Thinking Ability Based on Issues-driven and Course Objectives

Computer science concept and ability is crucial to modern information technology.As a basic computer science education,computational thinking has become one of the first courses for college students and the foundation for training for non-computer professionals.Computational thinking is a way of thinking that students in all majors should master.In the process of teaching,students learn to use computational thinking to solve professional and technical problems and make good use of computer’s powerful tools.It is one of the major themes of recent teaching research.We set course objectives from issues-driven and correspond each class to the module objectives,so that the focus of course content is clear.The learning clues for the students are clear,which is conducive to the cultivation and improvement of computational thinking.

Defining Computational Thinking as an Evident Tool in Problem-Solving:Comparative Research on Chinese and Canadian Mathematics Textbooks

Purpose:To analyze mathematics problem-solving(PS)procedures in Chinese(CH)and Canadian(CA)elementary mathematics textbooks that leverage computational thinking(CT)as a cognitive tool,which have evidently existed and been implemented.Design/Approach/Methods:In this study,an analysis framework was developed to investigate the characteristics of CT tools for three PS steps—understand the problem,devise and conduct plans,and look back into textbooks—in four contexts:data practices,modeling and simulation practices,computational tools practices,and systemic thinking practices.Findings:Our results demonstrate the tools(CT)employed in the PS process in CH and CA mathematics textbooks.The strong connections between the“look back”stage and CT tools were explored.During the“look back”stage,both countries required students to transfer their knowledge and perform generalization.In addition,CT is regarded as a basic skill analysis for students in mathematics education and has received significant attention at every stage of the PS process.Originality/Value:This study brings a new perspective to CTresearch in education by regarding CT as a cognitive tool for students in mathematics PS.

Innovating Pedagogical Practices through Professional Development in Computer Science Education

Recent advancements in technology have opened up new avenues for educators to facilitate teaching and leverage more learning access in the digital age.As the demand for computational skills continues to grow in preparation for future careers,both teachers and students face the challenge of developing problem-solving,critical thinking,communication,and collaboration skills within an emerging digital landscape.Technology adoption,big data,cloud computing and artificial intelligence pose ongoing challenges for both teachers and students in adapting to the changing workforce development landscape.To tackle these challenges,the paper highlights the importance of exploring the implications of learning sciences in classroom teaching,developing a holistic vision for professional development in education,and understanding the complexities of teacher change.To effectively implement these components,it is crucial to adopt design approaches that prioritize student ownership in education and embrace the principles of inclusive education to reconceptualize the teaching practices in education and technology.

Play by Design:Developing Artificial Intelligence Literacy through Game-based Learning

The paper proposes an innovative approach aimed at fostering AI literacy through interactive gaming experiences.This paper designs a game-based prototype for preparing pre-service teachers to innovate teaching practices across disciplines.The simulation,Color Conquest,serves as a strategic game to encourage educators to reconsider their pedagogical practices.It allows teachers to use and develop various scenarios by customizing maps,giving students agency to engage in the complex decision-making process.Additionally,this engagement process provides teachers with an opportunity to develop students’skills in artificial intelligence literacy as students actively develop strategic thinking,problem-solving,and critical reasoning skills.

Big Data and Data Science:Opportunities and Challenges of iSchools

Due to the recent explosion of big data, our society has been rapidly going through digital transformation and entering a new world with numerous eye-opening developments. These new trends impact the society and future jobs, and thus student careers. At the heart of this digital transformation is data science, the discipline that makes sense of big data. With many rapidly emerging digital challenges ahead of us, this article discusses perspectives on iSchools＇ opportunities and suggestions in data science education. We argue that iSchools should empower their students with ＂information computing＂ disciplines, which we define as the ability to solve problems and create values, information, and knowledge using tools in application domains. As specific approaches to enforcing information computing disciplines in data science education, we suggest the three foci of user-based, tool-based, and application- based. These three loci will serve to differentiate the data science education of iSchools from that of computer science or business schools. We present a layered Data Science Education Framework （DSEF） with building blocks that include the three pillars of data science （people, technology, and data）, computational thinking, data-driven paradigms, and data science lifecycles. Data science courses built on the top of this framework should thus be executed with user-based, tool-based, and application-based approaches. This framework will help our students think about data science problems from the big picture perspective and foster appropriate problem-solving skills in conjunction with broad perspectives of data science lifecycles. We hope the DSEF discussed in this article will help fellow iSchools in their design of new data science curricula.

Teaching Reform and Practice on Course Construction of Discrete Mathematics

Discrete mathematics studies the respective structures,laws and interrelationships of different discrete quantities,which has a wide range of applications in computer science and software engineering.It has the characteristics of research,practice and innovation.The teaching goals of the course of discrete mathematics include not only the understanding and mastery of knowledge,but also the study of methodology.However,current teaching mechanism has limitations in outdated course contents,rare real project examples and nonscientific scoring modes.This paper attempts to think about the course construction of discrete mathematics to improve the teaching effects and cultivate students’practical ability.

Parametric Design:Measuring Learning States

Project teaching and learning comprises properties,strategies and procedures that currently involve computational thinking and logical reasoning.In general,this problem arises from the possibilities offered by the new software and the increase of the level of dominion of the project by the designer.In this context,this study aims to estimate how much the student profile contemporary of architecture is motivated and engaged in learning new project processes that use computational reasoning and logical reasoning,characteristic of parametric design.Methodologically,the research is based on the theory of flow,presents results of an investigation of engagement and learning of students of a school of Architecture and Urbanism in Brazil,referring to the themes and uses of parametric drawing.This study contributed to the practice and use of parametric design in the educational environment,besides allowing the integration of computational thinking in the creative process of the project.

Architecture,Design and Computer Science:Professional Training for Elementary School Teachers

Studies show that contemporary teaching methodologies are based on skills and competences directed to different areas of professional practice,such as Architecture,Design and Computer Science.Collective learning spaces gain strength,stimulating the development of new skills by users.The Digital Manufacturing Laboratories(Fab Labs)and Makerspaces are entering the school environment and starting a movement for change in traditional education.Although they are seen as potential drivers for higher quality education,the lack of specific training for teachers in the face of new digital information and communication technologies,especially in basic education,becomes limiting in the development of new active methodologies.Thus,this study aimed to develop a training dynamic for basic education teachers,addressing the use of tools and equipment for digital manufacturing and prototyping,2D and 3D modeling applications and software,and programming and electronics.The methodology consists of literature review,followed by the action research method with two workshops given through an online and synchronous platform.The importance of incorporating creative and innovative methodologies in education is understood,and above all,there is a dynamic,planned and effective structure,geared towards the orientation of teachers.

Towards Data-Driving Multi-View Evaluation Framework for Scratch

As one of the most popular visual programming languages,Scratch has a lot of evaluation around it.Reasonable evaluation can help programmers understand their projects better.At the same time,it can also provide a reference for them to browse other projects in the online community.Most of the existing evaluations on Scratch are carried from three perspectives:Computational Thinking(CT)ability,visual presentation aesthetics,and code quality.Among them,the assessment of CT and code quality is mainly carried out from the program script,while the evaluation of visual aesthetics is analyzed from the perspective of image sequences generated by project execution.The single-view evaluation focuses on the performance of a program in a certain aspect and is one-sided.In this paper,we propose a multi-view evaluation framework to integrate various evaluations using different policies.We quantitatively analyze the assessment of different views driven by data.Combined with overall evaluations that represent human opinions,we analyze their differences and connections.Through experiments,we determine the weights of different integration policies,the proposed multi-view evaluation method can generate evaluation results similar to human opinions.

Three New Concepts of Future Computer Science

This article presents an observation resulted from the six-year Sino-USA computer science leadership exchanges： the trend towards the emergence of a new computer science that is more universal and fundamental than that in the past. In the 21st century, the field of computer science is experiencing fundamental transformations, from its scope, objects of study, basic metrics, main abstractions, fundamental principles, to its relationship to other sciences and to the human society, while inheriting the basic way of thinking and time-tested body of knowledge accumulated through the past 50 years. We discuss three new concepts related to this trend. They are computational lens and computational thinking articulated by US scientists, and ternary computing for the masses proposed by Chinese scientists. We review the salient features of these concepts, discuss their impact, and summarize future research directions.

Adopting cloud computing to optimize spatial web portals for better performance to support Digital Earth and other global geospatial initiatives

A spatial web portal(SWP)provides a web-based gateway to discover,access,manage,and integrate worldwide geospatial resources through the Internet and has the access characteristics of regional to global interest and spiking.Although various technologies have been adopted to improve SWP performance,enabling high-speed resource access for global users to better support Digital Earth remains challenging because of the computing and communication intensities in the SWP operation and the dynamic distribution of end users.This paper proposes a cloud-enabled framework for high-speed SWP access by leveraging elastic resource pooling,dynamic workload balancing,and global deployment.Experimental results demonstrate that the new SWP framework outperforms the traditional computing infrastructure and better supports users of a global system such as Digital Earth.Reported methodologies and framework can be adopted to support operational geospatial systems,such as monitoring national geographic state and spanning across regional and global geographic extent.