Gilchrist Pamela O, Alexander Alonzo B, Green Adrian J, Sanders Frieda E, Hooker Ashley Q, Reif David M
The Science House-College of Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27604, USA.
College of Education, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27604, USA.
Educ Sci (Basel). 2021 Mar;11(3). doi: 10.3390/educsci11030109. Epub 2021 Mar 9.
Computational thinking is an essential skill in the modern global workforce. The current public health crisis has highlighted the need for students and educators to have a deeper understanding of epidemiology. While existing STEM curricula has addressed these topics in the past, current events present an opportunity for new curricula that can be designed to present epidemiology, the science of public health, as a modern topic for students that embeds the problem-solving and mathematics skills of computational thinking practices authentically. Using the Computational Thinking Taxonomy within the informal education setting of a STEM outreach program, a curriculum was developed to introduce middle school students to epidemiological concepts while developing their problem-solving skills, a subset of their computational thinking and mathematical thinking practices, in a contextually rich environment. The informal education setting at a Research I Institution provides avenues to connect diverse learners to visually engaging computational thinking and data science curricula to understand emerging teaching and learning approaches. This paper documents the theory and design approach used by researchers and practitioners to create a Pandemic Awareness STEM Curriculum and future implications for teaching and learning computational thinking practices through engaging with data science.
计算思维是现代全球劳动力所需的一项基本技能。当前的公共卫生危机凸显了学生和教育工作者深入理解流行病学的必要性。虽然现有的STEM课程过去已经涉及这些主题，但当前的事件为设计新的课程提供了契机，这些课程可以将作为公共卫生科学的流行病学呈现为一个现代主题，让学生切实地融入计算思维实践中的问题解决和数学技能。在一个STEM推广项目的非正式教育环境中，利用计算思维分类法，开发了一门课程，向中学生介绍流行病学概念，同时在丰富的情境环境中培养他们的问题解决技能，这是他们计算思维和数学思维实践的一个子集。一所研究型I类机构的非正式教育环境提供了途径，将不同的学习者与视觉上引人入胜的计算思维和数据科学课程联系起来，以理解新兴的教学方法。本文记录了研究人员和教育工作者用于创建大流行意识STEM课程的理论和设计方法，以及通过参与数据科学对计算思维实践教学和学习的未来影响。
