Recomposing computational thinking in schools, one teacher at a time

Samuhik Pahal (SP): How did CSpathshala start working in the Computational Thinking (CT) space in India? What were the initial challenges?

Sonia Garcha (SG): Today digital skills, problem-solving, critical thinking and analysis, technology design and programming, and reasoning and ideation have become relevant for all of us to be successful in the digital economy. Computational Thinking (CT) is a foundational skill for all. It is a practice that is central to all sciences, not just computer science. World over, K-12 computing education is moving away from digital literacy to a computational thinking curriculum. Introducing CT curriculum for schools in India has had several challenges. Apart from the cultural and regional diversity, India has over 1.6 million schools offering K-12 education to 300 million students. India has 44 education Boards! The twin problems of filling up the large skills gap in the area of computing and the diversity of the population that needs to be trained quickly make this into a grand challenge.

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), India, started CSpathshala, a national school
education initiative, in 2016, to develop a computing curriculum for K-12. CSpathshala has evolved the curriculum and contents by piloting these across schools around the country. Computational Thinking (CT) is not just programming and use of technology. Our goal is that students develop a systematic approach to problem solving, and break down the solution into small steps that a computer can execute.

The curriculum committee comprising of academia and experts from the industry developed a high-level curriculum of what should computational thinking curriculum be in K12 education. A detailed syllabus document in different thematic areas, with an implementation plan and teaching aids, was prepared with the help of volunteers.

While CT created excitement, there was no clarity among the community of educators and teachers about what CT is and whether promoting CT in schools is necessary. We conducted awareness workshops for the decision makers, such as government officials, trustees, and principals to motivate them to teach computing as a science through an enhanced understanding on why CT should be taught in schools and how CT is different from ICT. Following this, we conducted special teacher training workshops to train teachers on the fundamentals of CS, and to take them through our new computing curriculum. Building a community of practice enabled the teachers in sharing challenges and innovative practices.

Then the question became, where do we fit it in the school curriculum?

What was being taught in schools in ICT or computer classes? the focus was on digital literacy, teaching them MS-Word, PowerPoint, etc. Students were also being taught acronyms and history of computers and coding. What they ended up doing was just teaching a plethora of programming languages, and students learnt some syntax. There was a gap in the existing curriculum.

The principles of computational thinking, viz. decomposition, pattern recognition and generalization, algorithms and programming are covered in the CSpathshala curriculum. An algorithm is something that everyone needs to understand. Ask someone for directions to reach their home and you realize how people are unable to give precise instructions.

The students first learn following instructions with activities like “Robot Game,” and then move on to the process of devising algorithms with activities like “Guess my Birthdate.” In our curriculum there is a defined progression of the syllabus across the thematic areas based on the existing school curriculum.

Samuhik Pahal: So, this syllabus was created and then teachers were trained. However, how does this curriculum get transacted in the classrooms?

Sonia Garcha: In the first year, we implemented a small pilot in Pune with 15 schools. The teachers training and the teaching aids for classes 1 to 8 included a slide deck, lesson plans and student worksheets. These could be used by teachers in the classrooms. They were provided at no cost to the schools.

We also undertook regular school visits and conducted feedback workshops from teachers to document what was working, and what needed to be changed. At the end of the first year, we grew from 15 schools to 100 across four (4) states. Since the school curriculum is too crowded to add new subject material, the time already allotted for ICT/Computer in classes 1 to 8 were productively restructured to include teaching computational thinking.

During the teachers’ feedback sessions, teachers shared that CT activities have also helped reinforce concepts in math. Mathematical thinking and computational thinking are closely related. Math involves executing algorithms — long division, computing GCD and LCM. Schools adopted multiple routes for implementation of CT. These included integration with computer science, replace existing ICT curriculum, integration with math or being taught as an extra-curricular subject. Tamil Nadu state education department has included CT as part of the mathematics curriculum since 2018 that reaches 30,000 schools.

Moving to rural government schools, the primary schools have an all-subject teacher, who teaches all the subjects and lack resources. To make computing equitable, CSpathshala has adopted the unplugged approach of teaching computing without computers.

To give you an example, one of the very popular unplugged activities is solving Sudoku. Instead of starting with a complex 9×9 Sudoku, the students start with a simple 4×4 Sudoku moving on to 6×6, and then to a 9×9. The objective here is not to teach students to solve Sudoku, but to teach them decomposition, so that they learn how to break more complex problems into smaller ones, devise algorithms and use generalization to extend the solution to solve more complex problems. Teachers have replaced numbers with shapes if children have difficulty solving 4×4 Sudokus.

Another daily life example is looking for patterns. In classes one and two, students start looking at rangolis – understanding repeating patterns, visualizing patterns and drawing rangolis. In higher classes, students study symmetry as a pattern. They use repetitive addition for multiplication, GCD as examples of patterns, which is a part of the math curriculum.

Samuhik Pahal: CSpathshala has also been able to quickly scale up its work. What has been the contours of this journey? What are the challenges that the organization has faced in this process?

Sonia Garcha: Since 2018, we started working with Andhra Pradesh Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society’s (APSWREIS) tribal welfare and ashram schools. There were 200,000 students from 427 schools across 13 districts learning computational thinking. To achieve scale and develop a sustainable model, we shifted to training the master trainers, who in turn trained the teachers and provided handholding support for CT implementation.

One of the most important learnings was the adaption to local contexts by the teachers. A related question is – how you share your classroom activities and innovative approaches that you have implemented. Teachers shared photographs and videos of CT activities that they had implemented on WhatsApp groups. Volunteers helped teachers publish blogposts on the CSpathshala website.

The CTiS (Computational Thinking in Schools) conference is an annual event organized by ACM India (Association for Computing Machinery India) and the CSpathshala community. It aims to bring together teachers, educators and researchers to discuss issues of curriculum, pedagogy, policy and implementation, related to bringing computational thinking to schools.

CTiS-2019, the first conference, had teacher presentations on challenges faced and innovative approaches used to implement CT activities in the classroom. For the first three editions of CTiS, we had submissions from computer teachers and a few math teachers too.

CSpathshala’s work at the policy level enabled the inclusion of CT in National Education Policy (NEP) 2020: Section 4.25 of NEP 2020 says:

“It is recognized that mathematics and mathematical thinking will be very important for India’s future and India’s leadership role in the numerous upcoming fields and professions that will involve artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science, etc.”

Thus, mathematics and computational thinking will be given increased emphasis throughout the school years, starting with the foundational stage, through a variety of innovative methods, including the regular use of puzzles and games that make mathematical thinking more enjoyable and engaging. Activities involving coding will be introduced in Middle Stage.”

We also received feedback from science teachers that the skills in critical thinking and logical reasoning being developed through our CS curriculum were helping students better grapple with concepts in science. Our children are observing their surroundings, identifying patterns, and are curious to explore how things work. After 2021, we have seen a sea change. Along with computer teachers, language, science, math and social studies teachers, are now exploring the integration of computational thinking as part of the school curriculum.

Samuhik Pahal: How do you engage with the governmental system to ensure that the CSpathshala curriculum gets transacted in government schools?

Sonia Garcha: We have been closely working with state governments. Specifically, we have engaged with Andhra Pradesh Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society, Zilla Parishad Schools in Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu in implementing CT. Teaching programming is an important area of work. However, it will not be possible to teach programming across all schools unless we are able to find a scalable model to provide affordable computing devices, supplemented with access to other amenities such as power supply and basic infrastructure.

To address these challenges, and make computing equitable, CSpathshala has adopted the unplugged approach of teaching computing without computers. This has been piloted with 600,000 students in 1,500 schools across 11 states in four (4) languages. Two thirds of these are rural government schools, demonstrating that computational thinking is for all!

Our whole ideology is about mainstreaming the CT curriculum. In National Education Policy 2020, and in many countries across the world, Computational Thinking (CT) has been identified as one of the essential subjects to be taught and a critical skill to be developed in children during the school years. It advances the notion that the mathematics and the science behind computer science, go far beyond the simple ability to use computers, and can be taught and discussed in schools even without the use of computers.

With the inclusion of CT in formal curricula of mainstream subjects like math, science and social studies, there will be dedicated time for CT in the academic calendar, and the provision for training teachers. NEP 2020 also mentions inclusion. With this, the students in rural, semi-urban and government schools, who were typically excluded, will now benefit with opportunities to learn computing.

However, there is a flipside to this as well. Computational thinking has now become the new buzzword. In urban schools, the inclusion in NEP can lead simply to new subjects like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) introduced at school level, entirely missing the conceptual basis of CT. CSpathshala’s position on CT is that it should be taught at par with mathematics and sciences and not be reduced to programming.

Samuhik Pahal: You have mentioned teachers’ training and engagement as a critical part of your approach. Could you please elaborate a little on this?

Sonia Garcha: We believe that teachers’ training is an important component for the successful implementation of CT by conducting interactive sessions through activities and imparting CT knowledge. CSpathshala has played an important role in building teachers’ capacities to train students to develop the ability to solve problems and explore multiple solutions toward solving problems.

While conducting teachers training, we don’t initially mention the four pillars of CT. To help teachers overcome the fear of CT, we take examples from daily life. For example, this may include an initial question on how to make a cup of tea. This then leads to a discussion on the various ways of making tea and the different steps involved. It then morphs into deliberations on giving precise instructions and devising algorithms.

During the training sessions, the focus is on pedagogy and CT skills. We demonstrate how the activity should be taught in the classroom and then ask the teachers to conduct it during the training. This helps build teachers’ confidence to conduct the activities in the classrooms.

I really take pride in the CTiS conference, which is a platform to bring teachers together. This year, we had more than 200 submissions for the conference. Forty-four submissions from these were selected for the final national conference, with more than 200 participants, and around 2,000 people participating online. We have also organized two regional conferences in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, to provide a larger number of teachers opportunities to present and showcase their work.

Samuhik Pahal: What are the ways in which your organization has tried to address concerns related to inclusion in CT?

Sonia Garcha: CT and inclusion is not just about teaching the CT unplugged curriculum, but also going beyond by providing an opportunity to the unreached rural and government schools. Vision Empower (VE), who work on STEM education for the visually challenged, adapted CT content to teach visually impaired children. Ongoing conversations with the VE team have been an important part of our learnings in the CT and inclusion space.

During CTiS2022, we also organized the Tactile Accessible Computational Thinking (TACT) Grand Challenge. The pedagogy of Computational Thinking has been more visual than tactile, thereby leading to lack of inclusion in classrooms. The aspiration of this challenge was to create a novel approach to CT, which can be equally accessible for learners with speech, hearing or visual impairment or those without any impairments. We received submissions from academia and teachers from India and overseas, and the selected activities were showcased at CTiS-2022.

In CTiS-2023, we had a special CT and inclusion track for teachers and educators working with students with special needs. CTiS-2023 conference also had submissions in five other languages apart from English – in Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil, Hindi and Marathi. The goal was to provide our rural and government schoolteachers opportunities to present.

Samuhik Pahal: If you could please reflect a little on the challenges of working at scale when one is a voluntary organization?

Sonia Garcha: For us, our volunteer group who joined us in 2016 has worked well. It continues to contribute to the initiative. We have had a large number of volunteers across five (5) continents during content creation.

CSpathshala also organizes the Bebras India Challenge, which is conducted free in seven languages to provide opportunities to the unreached rural and government school students. Since 2018, over 500,000 students in the age group of 8-18 years have participated in Bebras India Challenge. Bebras is an international Computational Thinking Challenge for students organized in over 74 countries. It is designed to get students across the world excited about computing. Our volunteers help in translations. They also reach out to schools to popularize the challenge.

During the CTiS conference, volunteers are actively involved in the various committees. They play an important role of reviewing the abstracts and mentoring the teachers. It is also a gratifying experience for our volunteers who have created the content to see the impact shared by the teachers during the presentations. I am happy to share that the CSpathshala family – our volunteers – are one of our biggest strengths. Without them this impact would not have been possible.

CSpathshala’s efforts are showing a positive impact both at the school and policy levels. Through our work, we have been able to show that it is possible to convey the essential ideas of computing to all school students without drastically disrupting the existing system. All we need is some open-mindedness and vision among schoolteachers and administrators. Computational Thinking is fundamental for all, not just for computer scientists!