Why is computational thinking essential nowadays?

A lot of countries nowadays include in their curriculum the subject known as “computational thinking”. Problem-solving, analyzing the validity of solutions, and spotting patterns in data — all these skills are taught in “computational thinking” and are important skills for the workplace. This subject also tries to reduce the gap between education and the workplace. Because, maybe you know subjects well, but cannot show that in your workplace. Computational thinking course plays a huge role here.

“Computational thinking” — is the thought processes involved in problem-solving, such that the solutions are expressed in a way that the information-processing agent, such as a computer, can effectively carry out. There are four parts of computational thinking:

· decomposition — simplifying; breaking down a complex problem or system into a smaller one, that is easier to manage.

· pattern recognition — looking for similarities among and within problems

· abstraction — being focused only on important parts, ignoring irrelevant details.

· algorithms — in order to find a solution using an algorithm, which is a step-by-step solution to the problem.

Above mentioned skills are not only for those who use computers. These skills are very important in school, university, as well as in life. For example, abstraction is advantageous mostly in university. An effective way of recording lectures is writing only the parts that are important to know according to the topic. And for these students should think differently, in order to understand what is important and remove the unnecessary parts. Another example is about me; when I am learning new English words, and they seem hard to remember, I am trying to use pattern recognition for each of these words, associating these words with the Russian words, that are similar in pronunciation. I am using algorithms to manage my day by doing all my homework and sleep on time. Decomposition is an important skill allowing students to analyze the problem by separating it into steps. For example, if you give someone to build a city model without instructions, only giving all the necessary materials, Students will think about the steps that they need to do in order to build this city-model.

However, nowadays everything is linked with technologies and a lot of careers involve applying computational thinking with technologies. Computational thinking without technologies is good, but when we use computation thinking to solve problems with computers, this is really different. Even people who learn to think in a computational way without technology, love to use it with computers. Using computational thinking to solve problems and create solutions would require programming a computer for having desired results in a career, that involves the use of technology.

Computers are good at doing tasks with accuracy. But for doing these tasks, humans should give them special instructions on what and how to do it. This is called Algorithmic design and it is about a set of instructions given to the computer by humans. For example, in cooking this set of instructions is called a recipe, in mathematics — equation and in computer science — coding. This is a logical part of computational thinking and students use various languages, such as Python or Scratch, to create that computer instructions, which makes computers do the things that they could not do previously.

Today problem solving is required in a lot of businesses. Computational thinking helps students to have skills that are useful for their future careers. Computational thinking skills are useful in a career, such as business, financial markets, energy, tourism, and travel, as well as public services such as healthcare, education. Employees in the work should be good problem solvers, who think about problems and create suitable solutions.

Computational thinking is a skill that can be or should be applied to any area, beginning from kinder to university level. Most importantly, it should start being taught in the kinder garden, so that from early ages the children could use their brain in a different way. Teachers should begin to use their own method of teaching, where students will develop their computational thinking skills. I believe that this skill will be developed in Azerbaijani schools at a high level and our next generation will be equipped with computational thinking skills!!!