Two hundred tickets by nine o'clock
A school help desk opens on Monday. By nine o'clock there are 200 tickets. Printers jam. Logins fail. The wifi drops in room 12.
Nobody can fix 200 things at once. The team needs a way to think about them. The way to do it is computational thinking: a way of solving problems in clear steps.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can name the four parts of computational thinking and say what each one is for.
Key words
| Word | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Computational thinking | A way of solving problems in steps that a person or a computer can follow | |
| Decomposition | Breaking a problem into smaller parts | split "network down" into cable, switch, router |
| Pattern recognition | Spotting things that repeat or look alike | five tickets about one printer |
| Abstraction | Keeping the details that matter and hiding the rest | |
| Algorithmic design | Writing the steps of a solution in a clear order | |
| Algorithm | A set of clear steps, in order, that solves a problem |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Starter
Have a go
Starter
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
Computational thinking is a way to solve problems
Computational thinking means working on a problem in clear steps. You do not need a computer to do it. A person can follow the steps, and so can a computer.
Its purpose is to turn a messy problem into one you can solve. It makes the problem smaller, clearer and easier to share with a team.
The four parts, in help desk words
| Part | What you do | Help desk example |
|---|---|---|
| Decomposition | Break the problem into smaller parts | Split "email is broken" into login, sending and receiving |
| Pattern recognition | Look for what repeats or matches | Ten tickets all come from room 12 |
| Abstraction | Keep what matters, drop the rest | Ignore the colour of the laptop, keep the model and the error |
| Algorithmic design | Write the steps in order | A checklist for a password reset |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Check
Have a go
Check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.