The Computational Thinking (CT) Integration Framework and self-assessment tool is intended to help educators make preliminary determinations about their and their school’s readiness to integrate an instructional focus on computational thinking (CT) across the elementary school curriculum and helps them to monitor the success of their progress towards these efforts.
The CT Integration Framework achieves this by helping school personnel to:
- identify and describe the core elements that affect their CT integration efforts;
- determine their school’s readiness—including diagnosing strengths and weaknesses—for integrating CT across multiple subjects; and
- set goals and create an actionable plan for implementing their CT integration efforts, monitor their progress toward those goals, and revise their plan along the way.
Achieving school-wide CT integration involves a sustained and intentional effort to develop learners’ computational thinking competencies across subject areas and extending across multiple grades, and is achieved through the ongoing coordination, collaboration, and sustained efforts of all school staff including the leadership team, in-school coaches, teachers, and other stakeholders.
However, working towards school-wide integration should be seen as a gradual process that may be achieved by starting with partial integration, guided by prioritizing immediate and long-term goals, rather than attempting to achieve full school-wide integration all at once. In these instances, the Framework can help teachers, administrators, and other school personnel focus on and prioritize what elements can be implemented by them, but also serve as a pathway for initiating conversations between all school staff around the vision, plan, and each member’s role in working collaboratively towards school-wide integration.
Watch this three-minute video for a brief walk through the CT framework and hear first-hand accounts from school personnel that used the framework and self-assessment tool to think strategically about their CT integration efforts.
See more in our presentation video here.