Computational Thinking Competencies

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The ISTE Computational Thinking Competencies guide educators in integrating computational thinking across disciplines, with all students. The goal is to help learners harness the power of computing to innovate and solve problems. Discover how this body of work complements the existing CSTA K-12 CS Standards for Students and the K-12 Computer Science Framework.

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The ISTE Standards

1. For Students 2. For Educators 3. For Education Leaders 4. For Coaches

The ISTE Standards

1. For Students 2. For Educators 3. For Education Leaders 4. For Coaches

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1. Computational Thinking (Learner) 2. Equity Leader (Leader) 3. Collaborating Around Computing (Collaborator) 4. Creativity & Design (Designer) 5. Integrating Computational Thinking (Facilitator)

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1. Computational Thinking (Learner) 2. Equity Leader (Leader) 3. Collaborating Around Computing (Collaborator) 4. Creativity & Design (Designer) 5. Integrating Computational Thinking (Facilitator)

1. Computational Thinking (Learner)

Educators continually improve their practice by developing an understanding of computational thinking and its application as a cross-curricular skill. Educators develop a working knowledge of core components of computational thinking, such as decomposition, gathering and analyzing data, abstraction, algorithm design, and the impacts of computing on people and society.

1.a Set Professional Learning Goals

Set professional learning goals to explore and apply teaching strategies for integrating CT practices into learning activities in ways that enhance student learning of both the academic discipline and CS concepts.

1.b Learn How & When to Use Computation

Learn to recognize where and how computation can be used to enrich data or content to solve discipline-specific problems and are able to connect these opportunities to foundational CT practices and CS concepts.

1.c Leverage CT Experts & Resources

Leverage CT and CS experts, resources and professional learning networks to continuously improve practice integrating CT across content areas.

1.d Develop a Growth Mindset

Develop resilience and perseverance when approaching CS and CT learning experiences, build comfort with ambiguity and open-ended problems, and see failure as an opportunity to learn and innovate.

1.e Recognize Inequities & Opportunities of CT

Recognize how computing and society interact to create opportunities, inequities, responsibilities and threats for individuals and organizations.

2. Equity Leader (Leader)

All students and educators have the ability to be computational thinkers and CS learners. Educators proactively counter stereotypes that exclude students from opportunities to excel in computing and foster an inclusive and diverse classroom culture that incorporates and values unique perspectives; build student self-efficacy and confidence around computing; address varying needs and strengths; and address bias in interactions, design and development methods.

2.a Nurture Student CT Confidence

Nurture a confident, competent and positive identity around computing for every student.

2.b Create Culturally Responsive Learning

Construct and implement culturally relevant learning activities that address a diverse range of ethical, social and cultural perspectives on computing, and highlight computing achievements from diverse role models and teams.

2.c Foster Inclusive Practices

Choose teaching approaches that help to foster an inclusive computing culture, avoid stereotypes and equitably engage all students.

2.d Drive Equitable Student Participation

Assess and manage classroom culture to drive equitable student participation, address exclusionary dynamics and counter implicit bias.

2.e Communicate Impact of Computing

Communicate with students, parents and leaders about the impacts of computing in our world and across diverse roles and professional life, and why these skills are essential for all students.

3. Collaborating Around Computing (Collaborator)

Effective collaboration around computing requires educators to incorporate diverse perspectives and unique skills when developing student learning opportunities, and recognize that collaboration skills must be explicitly taught to lead to better outcomes. Educators work together to select tools and design activities and environments that facilitate these collaborations and outcomes.

3.a Formulate Computational Solutions

Model and learn with students how to formulate computational solutions to problems and how to give and receive actionable feedback.

3.b Support Student Collaboration

Apply effective teaching strategies to support student collaboration around computing, including pair programming, working in varying team roles, equitable workload distribution and project management.

3.c Collaborate to Create Cross-Discipline Activities

Plan collaboratively with other educators to create learning activities that cross disciplines to strengthen student understanding of CT and CS concepts, and transfer application of knowledge in new contexts.

4. Creativity & Design (Designer)

CT skills can empower students to create computational artifacts that allow for personal expression. Educators recognize that design and creativity can encourage a growth mindset, and work to create meaningful CS learning experiences and environments that inspire students to build their skills and confidence around computing in ways that reflect their interests and experiences.

4.a Design Activities with Data in Mind

Design CT activities where data can be obtained, analyzed and represented to support problem-solving and learning in other content areas.

4.b Design Authentic Learning Activities

Design authentic learning activities that ask students to leverage a design process to solve problems with awareness of technical and human constraints, and defend their design choices.

4.c Teach Human-Centered Design

Guide students on the importance of diverse perspectives and human-centered design in developing computational artifacts with broad accessibility and usability.

4.d Promote Varied Viewpoints & Agency

Create CS and CT learning environments that value and encourage varied viewpoints, student agency, creativity, engagement, joy and fun.

5. Integrating Computational Thinking (Facilitator)

Educators facilitate learning by integrating computational thinking practices into the classroom. Since computational thinking is a foundational skill, educators develop every student’s ability to recognize opportunities to apply computational thinking in their environment.

5.a Account for Learner Variability

Evaluate and use CS and CT curricula, resources and tools that account for learner variability to meet the needs of all students.

5.b Empower Student Choice

Empower students to select personally meaningful computational projects.

5.c Vary Instructional Approaches

Use a variety of instructional approaches to help students frame problems in ways that can be represented as computational steps or algorithms to be performed by a computer.

5.d Use Alternative Assessments

Establish criteria for evaluating CT practices and content learning that use a variety of formative and alternative assessments to enable students to demonstrate their understanding of age-appropriate CS and CT vocabulary, practices and concepts.

Process of designing a step-by-step process, precise instructions or sequence to complete a task, especially for a computer. (OA agg)

As a process, reducing complexity by focusing on the main idea in a way that allows one to focus on the problem at hand; as a product, a new representation of a thing, a system or a problem that reframes a problem by hiding details irrelevant to the question at hand. (K12CS edit)

Including collecting, storing and representing information in a way that can be understood by a computer to help us find and recognize patterns, make predictions and communicate important ideas. (OA agg)

Breaking down a problem or system into smaller, more manageable components. (OA agg)

A problem-solving process that includes, but is not limited to, the following characteristics: formulating problems in a way that enables us to use a computer and other tools to help solve them; logically organizing and analyzing data; representing data through abstractions such as models and simulations; automating solutions through algorithmic thinking (a series of ordered steps); identifying, analyzing and implementing possible solutions with the goal of achieving the most efficient and effective combination of steps and resources; and generalizing and transferring this problem-solving process to a wide variety of problems. (ISTE)

May include computing systems; networks and the internet; data and analysis; algorithms and programming; impacts of computing; abstraction; system relationships; human-computer interaction; privacy and security; and communication and coordination. See the K12 CS Framework and the CSTA K12 CS Standards for a full description of fundamental CS concepts for students by grade level.

Educators can integrate CT practices into their instruction of other content areas to introduce computational ideas, for example, having students in a science class illustrate the movement of a solar system by modeling the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, or asking students in a history class to identify trends in labor market data that indicate economic depressions. The ISTE U Introduction to Computational Thinking for Every Educator and Google’s Computational Thinking Concepts Guide are great places to get started! (Google/OA agg)

Learn about, test and add into regular practice a variety of proven, promising and emerging learning strategies with technology.

Serve as liaison between stakeholders to carry out the vision and solve problems.

Applying computational thinking to solve complex, open-ended problems and make connections in other content areas.

Virtual, blended learning or in-person communities, like professional learning communities.

Finances, human capital

As part of a mindset of continuous improvement through persistence, tolerance for uncertainty, willingness to learn, openness to feedback, etc.

As an educator, seeking opportunities to learn about and places where the process of computational thinking and ideas foundational to computer science and/or computational thinking can be used to deepen student understanding of these concepts.

Problems that have many or undefined solutions.

Continued effort in the face of obstacles and/or uncertain outcomes.

Including ways that computing influences culture and behavior; historical inequities in participation; legal and ethical considerations around the use of computing devices; and privacy and security issues.

Belief in one's ability to succeed in learning CT and CS and accomplish computing tasks.

Content that reflects the multicultural nature of society.

Points of view that align with one’s moral code, social relations and norms, and the ideas, customs and behavior of a society. (ISTE/OA agg)

For example, concept maps, mindmaps, flowcharts and prototypes.

Constructing a learning environment and learning activities where all students feel motivated and supported.

Incorporating perspectives from people of different genders, ethnicities, abilities and perspectives, and understanding the personal, ethical, social, economic and cultural contexts in which people operate. (K12CS)

Such as inquiry-based teaching; project-based learning; emphasizing multiple solutions; exposing students to diverse CS and CT role models; and intentionally structuring peer interactions. (OA agg)

The attitudes that affect our understanding, actions and decisions in an unconscious way.

Inequitable or exclusionary interactions or dynamics potentially brought on by societal norms, bias or stereotypes.

Ensuring a classroom culture that facilitates positive student-student and student-teacher interactions, and encourages student participation based on their strengths and needs.

Educators plan for learning that accommodates differing access levels and individual student needs, for example, providing homework alternatives for students who do not have internet access at home, providing competency-based or other opportunities to demonstrate learning, scaffolding student learning to challenge and support individual students where they are, and advocating for an equitable system for all students.

For example, digital camera or video, audio software, graphic design software, writing software.

Individuals who intentionally and transparently adopt and demonstrate best practices.

Ask questions and share ideas to provide constructive feedback in a way that students can incorporate others’ ideas and perspectives into their work.

Define a problem, break it down into parts, evaluate each part to determine whether a computational solution is appropriate, and represent the solution in a form that both a computer and a human could understand. (K12 CS/OA agg)

Creating opportunities for students to make connections between elements of computational thinking across disciplines and see where these concepts can apply in multiple contexts. For example, students learning about parts of speech might use a set of cards and templates to create an algorithm that generates postcards. Educators could extend this experience by having students write a program to accomplish the same task.

Dedicate time to collaborate with colleagues to improve practice, discover and share resources and ideas, and create an integrated CT learning experience for students. (ISTE plus)

Anything created by a human using a computational thinking process and a computing device, including but not limited to, a program, image, audio, video, presentation or web page file. (K12CS)

Finding opportunities to collect and use or transform data to better understand the world and deepen student learning, including to automate the data collection process, simplify data and discover and communicate patterns and trends. (K12CS/OA agg)

Taking into account the way and by whom a product will be used in the design process and reflecting their preferences and needs in the design, such as ease of use, accessibility to people with disabilities, cost, user experience, materials, language, environmental factors and cultural barriers. (ISTE plus)

A methodology for problem-solving; a series of steps used to solve a problem and design a solution. For example, human-centered design process, project-based learning, engineering design processes, scientific method. (ISTE)

Learning experiences that have value or resonance beyond the classroom, for example, solving real-world problems; workforce-related projects and skill-building; wrestling with significant philosophical or intellectual problems; and designing projects or processes. (ISTE)

Design and management framework and creative approach to problem-solving that develops solutions to problems by keeping the human perspective at the core of all steps of the design process. (OA agg/IDEO)

A level of autonomy and self-direction from students taking responsibility and ownership of learning goals.

Classroom culture/norms and learning activities. (OA agg)

If planned for and supported, maximizes student learning and engagement, such as differentiation, assistive technologies, building motivation to learn by stimulating interest, multimodal content delivery, fostering learning awareness of their work preferences and recognition of how academic work aligns to personal goals.

Learning activities and materials that provide opportunities for students to explore and apply principles of computational thinking and computer science. (OA agg)

Projects that use computation or computational thinking and reflect students’ experiences or interests.

Step-by-step processes to complete a task. (K12CS)

Techniques used to achieve a learning outcome. (OA agg)

Using precise and age-appropriate language, examples and vocabulary to introduce computational thinking and computer science learning experiences, techniques and ideas to students based their level and classroom environment.

Often student-chosen ways to demonstrate their knowledge and skills; within computational artifacts, educators need to establish criteria for consistently evaluating a variety of artifact types.