What is computational thinking?

“Computational thinking is the thought processes involved in formulating problems so their solutions can be represented as computational steps and algorithms.”
Aho, A. V. (2011). Ubiquity symposium: Computation and computational thinking. Ubiquity

As human beings, we have our own way of thinking. But computers are constructed by logic gates, which means they have a different way to think. The computational thinking is the way computer uses to interpret and solve the problem. To be simple, think as computer think.

There are four key techniques for computational thinking:

1. Decomposition: break down a big problem into small and manageable parts
2. Abstraction: ignore (abstract away from) irrelevant details
3. Pattern Recognition: recognize and reuse recurrent patterns
4. Algorithms: a step-by-step solution to solve a problem

These techniques are helpful for our further understanding and using of computational thinking.

Why it is important?

It is natural to ask why we need computational thinking. Obviously, it is necessary for programming and coding. We need to break down our target to different modules of codes, which consist of different methods. One single method may only contains one algorithm and can accomplish one and only one task. But we can invoke them with different order in main method to achieve different functions. Therefore, the big complicated problem is finished by small single tasks.

But besides that, it also works on many other things. For example, cooking procedures can be divided into washing, chopping, seasoning and boiling. We finish them in specific order by different ways (algorithms) and take them together. It’s done!