Promoting computational thinking with programming

The term computational thinking has received some discussion in the field of computer science education research. The term is defined as the concept of thinking about problems in a way that can be implemented in a computing device. Of course, after having thought about a problem using computational thinking skills, the next step should be to use programming skills to implement the solution. This work in progress is exploring ways in which programming can be employed as a tool to teach computational thinking and problem solving. Data is collected from teachers, academics, and professionals from various industries. They are purposively selected because of their knowledge of or interest in the topics of problem solving, computational thinking, and the teaching of programming. This data is analyzed within the paradigm of the grounded theory approach. The results of an initial analysis imply an ordering of complexity associated with computational thinking skills, imply connections between computational thinking skills and programming activities, and imply a relationship between computational thinking skills and other taxonomies of learning.