Building Computational Creativity in an Online Course for Non-Majors

Abstract

In recent years, a growing number of universities have begun to offer specialized courses as a way to make computer science (CS) more accessible to students with little or no prior CS or programming experience, especially non-CS majors. One of the ways courses have been modified for these students is by supplementing the core problem solving and coding aspects of the curriculum with explicit instruction on computational thinking principles. These "computational thinking" courses are promising in that they ground computational thinking in discipline-specific contexts and emphasize application of computational principles. However, there is little empirical research evaluating the extent to which students learn computational thinking from these courses. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of an online Computational Creativity course on students' computational thinking skills, creative competencies, and self-efficacy. Students in the Computational Creativity course were predominantly non-CS majors, and they completed four Computational Creativity Exercises (CCEs) that have previously been shown to improve learning and achievement. Results indicate that the Computational Creativity course was effective in increasing students' computational thinking knowledge and self-efficacy for applying computational thinking in their fields, but it did not have an impact on students' creative competencies. Additionally, students' reactions to the course and the CCEs were mostly positive. Thus, this study provides initial evidence that non-CS majors can learn computational thinking through the online Computational Creativity course.

Computational Thinking Interventions in Higher Education

“…Most studies describe positive effects of their interventions. A number of studies evaluated the CT skills and found improvement on post-tests (both self-assessment and actual skill tests) [2,15,17,32,45,47,49,51,63,67,69], a relation between the number of assignments completed and an increase in CT skills [44,60], increased awareness of using CT skills [37,41], and evidence of CT skills through an investigation of programming concepts used in Scratch [23]. Studies also describe improved understanding of CT [13,17,20,31,47,50,73,74], and conclude that the attitude towards CT was improved by the intervention [47,57,59,64,73,74].…”

“…Different options to teach CT without programming have been used in the studies. Examples of these are using computational creativity exercises [47,60], paper-and-pencil or unplugged activities [15,31,40,59], and simulation environments [28]. Content-wise the assignments are again very different.…”

Coleta de Evidências do Exercício do Pensamento Computacional no Ensino Superior em Computação: um artefato de apoio

“…Além dos métodos tradicionais de coleta de dados, existem métodos que foram desenvolvidos para avaliar e mensurar o desenvolvimento do Pensamento Computacional. Román-González et al [16] desenvolveu o Computational Thinking Test (CTt), que avalia os laços, direções, funções condicionais e simples, enquanto Peteranetz et al [14] desenvolveram um teste com 18 itens para medir as habilidades de Pensamento Computacional, os itens mediram abstração, generalização, decomposição, reconhecimento de padrões e algoritmos. Para mensurar o desenvolvimento do Pensamento Computacional, esse teste deve ser aplicado duas vezes, a primeira no início do semestre e a segunda no fim, de modo a verificar o progresso dos estudantes durante o semestre.…”

Investigation of the Relationship Between Gifted Students’ Perceptions of Computational Thinking Skills Level and Perceptions of Creativity Level

“…For example, Miller (2013) determined that creative thinking training improves computational thinking skills. Similarly, Peteranetz, Soh, and Ingraham (2019) determined that students who received computational creativity training improved their computational thinking knowledge level and computational thinking practices. In future studies, computational thinking skills and creativity of gifted students can be examined in detail with experimental research models.…”