CPATH CB: Computational Thinking Across the Curriculum

This CPATH Community Building project creates a framework for incorporating computational thinking principles and learning environments across the Liberal Studies curriculum at DePaul University. It includes outreach to other institutions in the greater Chicago region to build a computational thinking community. The project includes activities to investigate and formalize the use of computational thinking, to evaluate the learning of computational thinking, to disseminate results and resources, and to build an external computational thinking community. The intellectual merit of the project lies in the importance and currency of the topic and clear need for such changes in computing education to prepare the upcoming generation of computing professionals. The strong interdisciplinary project team has significant experience in educational innovation. The project has the potential to produce a much needed computational thinking framework that can be used for transforming general education content and courses across the nation. The broader impacts of the project lie in the potential to prepare a diverse student population for computational intense courses and curricula where they learn computational thinking methodologies that transfer directly to their professional lives. The project includes dissemination to a broad community and opportunities for sharing of resources. There is potential for national models that can help to develop a computing-savvy workforce which is vital to the nation's continued prosperity and security.