Concepts of Computational Thinking

Concepts of Computational Thinking

What is Computational Thinking?

• A problem solving process to solve problems effectively

• Four concepts

  • Decomposition

  • Pattern Recognition

  • Abstraction

  • Algorithms

Decomposition

• Breaking down a complex problem into smaller parts.

• Example: To decompose the task of creating an app, we need to know the answer to a series of smaller problems, such as:

  • who will be the targeted user of your app

  • what kind of app you want to create

  • what your app will look like

Multiple Choice

What is decomposition?

• Looking for similarities among and within problems

• Focusing on the important information only, ignoring irrelevant details.

• Breaking down a complex problem into smaller parts.

• A set of step-by-step instructions to solve a problem.

Pattern Recognition

• Looking for similarities among and within problems.

• Example: You only seen tigers from books, but when you see a real tiger in a zoo, you can immediately recognise it as a tiger even if the real tiger looks a bit different from the books.

Multiple Choice

What is pattern recognition?

• Looking for similarities among and within problems

• Focusing on the important information only, ignoring irrelevant details.

• Breaking down a complex problem into smaller parts.

• A set of step-by-step instructions to solve a problem.

Abstraction

• Focusing on the important information only, ignoring irrelevant details.

• Example: When you have a science test tomorrow, and you realise that you have other subjects to revise (e.g. mathematics and geography). Therefore, you focus on to prepare for the science test, while ignoring other subjects for a while.

Multiple Choice

What is abstraction?

• Looking for similarities among and within problems

• Focusing on the important information only, ignoring irrelevant details.

• Breaking down a complex problem into smaller parts.

• A set of step-by-step instructions to solve a problem.

Algorithm

• A set of step-by-step instructions to solve a problem.

• Example: When someone asked us to “get the ice cream inside the fridge”, immediately we can understand that they wanted us to go to the fridge, open the door, search for ice cream in the freezer, take the ice cream out from the fridge, and close the door. But we do not need to explicitly tell our brain to do so.

Multiple Choice

What is algorithm?

• Looking for similarities among and within problems

• Focusing on the important information only, ignoring irrelevant details.

• Breaking down a complex problem into smaller parts.

• A set of step-by-step instructions to solve a problem.