Online Session Locator

Session Description

Free ticketed event
Computational thinking is a crucial skill that is growing in importance for future engineers. As engineered devices incorporate more computational components, there is a growing demand of engineers who can design these components. In addition, the power of computation is radically altering what is and is not achievable in engineering, especially with the recent resurgence of artificial intelligence. Some engineering programs have responded by integrating computational thinking into introductory engineering courses for first-year students. These courses serve as the foundation of engineering education and can be gatekeepers for students to determine whether they pursue engineering as a career. Integrating computational thinking into introductory engineering courses without losing future engineers is a critical challenge in engineering education. This is especially significant because computer programming and computational thinking are areas of great inequality, with some secondary schools offering multi-layered programs for developing these skills while others have none.

Our collaborative multi-institutional research team has spent four years designing, implementing, deploying, and validating an engineering computational thinking diagnostic (ECTD). This instrument measures pre-post performance on questions that indicate student ability in the areas of abstraction, decomposition, algorithmic thinking, data representation, and the social context of computing. Instructors at higher education can use the ECTD as the diagnostic to assess entry-level skills that enable timely interventions, such as additional learning modules, learning cohorts, supplemental assistance, and guided aids. Pre-post applications of the ECTD can help educational programs evaluate the effectiveness of a course in achieving the development of computational thinking skills so that continuous improvement can be implemented for students.

The purpose of this workshop is to introduce and encourage use of the engineering computational thinking diagnostic (ECTD), discuss current and potential uses of this tool, and explore the broader impact that the tool can enable in the scholarship of research and scholarship of teaching of our participants.

Speakers

1. Dr. Noemi V Mendoza Diaz

   Texas A&M University

   Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution,
   Texas A&M University

2. Dr. Deborah Anne Trytten

   University of Oklahoma

   Computer Science
   University of Oklahoma

3. Dr. Russell D. Meier

   Milwaukee School of Engineering

   Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
   Milwaukee School of Engineering

4. Dr. So Yoon Yoon

   University of Cincinnati

   Engineering and Computing Education
   University of Cincinnati

5. Dr. Harry A. Hogan

   Texas A&M University

   Engineering Academic and Student Affairs
   Texas A&M University