Webinar Series

Computational Literacy - A New Literacy Necessary

for the Future of Learning and Work

February 16, 2022
Computational Literacy

The Very Idea

Andrea A. diSessa

Graduate School of Education

UC Berkeley
Exploring the “big picture” of what we 

should be doing concerning computation 

and education.

2
Outline

1. The Literacy Model

Computation as a literacy

– Historical View of the development of 

literacies, both textual and technical .

– Principles for the Literacy Model

2. Real-world vignettes of computational 

literacy in the classroom.

– More Principles for the Literacy Model

3. Critique of an alternate model 

Computational Thinking

3
A Historical Example:

Galileo’s Tribulations

A personal puzzle about: Dialogues 

Concerning Two New Sciences

Six theorems and their proofs

Think: What is going on here?

• What’s the topic?

• Why is Galileo “beating around the bush”?

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Six Theorems

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Six Theorems

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Six Theorems

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Proof of Theorem 1

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The Solution!

d = rt

BUT:

Galileo did not know algebra!

It did not exist when he did his work !

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A New

Representational System

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A New

Representational System

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Notes on the Development of Algebra 

as a Technical Mass Literacy

• Took 300 years (more or less)!

• 1900: In the first decade of the 20 th

Century: ~ 60% of high school students

• 1925: A severe critique on importance 

and learnability of algebra (William Heard 

Kilpatrick)

• 1955: ~25% !

• 2013: ~80% or above 

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Equity in the Development of 

Algebra as a Mass Literacy

• “Recent data” from NCES

Categories: Whites, Blacks, Asian

• Basic Algebra

– Almost no differences; Blacks lead in some 

categories! (Thanks, Bob Moses!)

• Calculus

– Asian: 43%

– White: 16%

– Black: 6% 13
World, English, and US

Illiteracy Rates, 1500 -1900

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Principles for

Computational Literacies

1. The development of a literacy is a very 

complex and extended social & cultural 

change.

2. A literacy fundamentally alters the 

intellectual structure of domains. 

A literacy needs a literature

You don’t get “smart” by learning to read. You get 

“smart” reading Shakespeare or a math book.

3. Re-Mediation is a primary mode of change. 

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QUESTIONS?

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Green Shoots of a Computational 

Literacy: Motion

Teaching about motion (high school “physics”) 

to sixth graders. A year-long class, without 

algebra and calculus!

Topics: Kinematics (the mathematics of motion) 

incl. vectors, graphing (representations of 

motion), composing motions, frames of 

reference, F = ma

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Defining Speed and Acceleration:

The Tick Model

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Advantages of the Tick Model

• No prerequisites (algebra)

• Cognitive simplicities (discrete time; natural 

numbers)

• Phenomenological: Makes motion!

• Generative model for any dynamical 

simulation

• Basis for projects (games!)

• Conceptual foundation for calculus

– Reading speed off position graphs

– Amy’s Innovation

– Charlie’s Insight

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Our Extension of Charlie’s Insight

Number lists, rather than algebraic expressions, 

as the core representation of functions.

Students can invent and enact the fundamental 

theorem of calculus: derivative and integral are 

inverses.

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Recall the Dispiriting 

Demographics on Calculus 

If children can do this in the sixth grade, what 

will they be capable of doing in high school?

Might this approach REPLACE algebraic 

calculus for many learning paths?

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Principles for

Computational Literacies

4. Reformulation 

“Redesigning knowledge” based on 

“cognitive simplicities”

“Speed is NOT the ratio of infinitesimals, but a 

small number that plays a very particular role in 

a simple program that moves objects around.”

A synergy of Re-Mediation + Reformulation 

is especially powerful! 

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Vectors

• The NSF said: “Vectors are simply 

developmentally inappropriate .” Reject!

• But all of the conceptual and pragmatic 

advantages of discrete time, functions -as- lists, etc. apply!

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Vectors

(Bruce Sherin)

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The Vector Tick Model

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What Happened with Vectors:

• Students learned about vectors easily.

• Massive time and experience with them.

– Students LOVED playing with vectors.

– They used vectors as user interface devices 

for computer games they invented and wrote.

• Magic in a nutshell: Phenomenologically 

live, useful, + time

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Principles for

Computational Literacies

5. Revitalizing the ecology of learning 

activities (for “substance” and engagement!)

- Reduce or eliminate small, algebra-based 

problems

- Much greater emphasis on phenomenology 

and explanation

- More extended, self-driven engagement: 

Projects such as writing computer games

- Much greater opportunity for personalization 

(including personal intellectual excursions 

such as Amy’s or Charlie’s) 28
QUESTIONS?

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Computational Thinking

A HUGE deal; a major movement

• $100 million funding for NSF.

• Arguably catalyzed a national curriculum 

in the UK. 

(Typically, the educational story is much more 

complex in the U.S.)

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Computational Thinking

Jeannette Wing: 2006, 2008, 2011, 2014

Wing’s notion of Computational Thinking:

– ... “is thinking like a computer scientist”

– ... “involves solving problems, designing 

systems, and understanding human behavior, 

by drawing on the concepts fundamental to 

computer science”

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Wing’s Appeal to “Higher 

Order Thinking Skills” (HOTS)

“[Computational thinking] represents a 

universally applicable attitude and skill set 

everyone, not just computer scientists, would 

be eager to learn and use.” 

(a) Divide and Conquer

(b) Planning

(c) Design a Representation

(d) Abstraction

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Précis of the Knotty

History of HOTS

1. Plato (~400 B.C.): 

“Those who are by nature good at calculation 

are, as one might say, naturally sharp in every 

other study, and ... those who are slow at it, if 

they are educated and exercised in this study, 

nevertheless improve and become sharperthan 

they were.”

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Précis of the Knotty

History of HOTS

2. “Mental Discipline” and “faculty 

psychology” (~1900 -30)

A diverse but powerful set of general skills 

(quickness, attention, discrimination, ...) can be 

improved by immersion in a selected set of 

disciplines (mathematics, classical studies such 

as Latin ...).

Edward Thorndike

– Credited with a “crushing blow” to these

– Massive empirical study circa 1925

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Précis of the Knotty

History of HOTS

Thorndike (1924) 

“The intellectual values of studies [“disciplines”] 

should be determined largely by the special 

information, habits, interests, attitudes, and ideals 

which they demonstrably produce. The 

expectation of any large differences in general 

improvement of the mind from one study 

[“discipline”] rather than another seems 

doomed to disappointment.” 

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Précis of the Knotty

History of HOTS

Thorndike and Woodworth (1901) 

“It is misleading to speak of sense 

discrimination, attention, memory, observation, 

accuracy, quickness, etc.” This is so because, 

“Multitudinous separate individual functions are 

referred to by any one of these words. These 

functions may have little in common.” 

Multiplicity

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Précis of the Knotty

History of HOTS

3. George Pólya and Problem Solving –

1945, then a BIG boom in the 1970s & 80s

(a) Divide and Conquer

(b) Planning

(c) Design a Representation (“Draw a 

Picture,” The Importance of Notations)

(d) Abstraction (Generalization)

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Wing’s Appeal to “Higher 

Order Thinking Skills” (HOTS)

“[Computational thinking] represents a universally 

applicable attitude and skill set everyone, not just 

computer scientists, would be eager to learn and use.”

(a) Divide and Conquer

(b) Planning

(c) Design a Representation

(d) Abstraction

38
Précis of the Knotty

History of HOTS

Andy’s pithy summary of the Problem 

Solving Movement: Basically, it failed.

– Problem solving has not come to a dominant 

presence in any discipline, much less in all.

– The best way to learn to solve problems (e.g., 

in mathematics) is to master the concepts.

– Learning problem solving is much more 

difficult than you might think because of the 

“multiplicity problem .” The “same thing” 

appears to have very many different forms.

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Modern HOTS (Meta -CS)

Reflection: Questions for Wing

– What makes your list different/better than 

Pólya’s?

– Why do you think the program will work 

better now than before?

– What is your response to the “ multiplicity 

problem”? 

– What makes you think CS can wrest 

“abstraction” away from other disciplines, like 

mathematics?

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HOTS Critique: Summary

• HOTS is an ancient, persistent, and 

psychologically powerful meme (perhaps 

impervious to the results of scientific scrutiny) 

that provides a central pillar of face value to 

Computational Thinking. 

• But the history of HOTS is complex and 

problematic, and that makes it an insecure 

foundation for CT.

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Review and Reflection: Principles

1. The growth of a literacy is a complex and very 

extended social and cultural process. 

2. Re-organizing intellectual domains : Deep 

shifts in the cognitive/conceptual structure of 

domains, when and how they can be taught.

3. Re-Mediation: Computation’s properties as a 

representational system will be foundational to 

the transformation.

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Review and Reflection: Principles

4. Reformulation: In addition to re-mediation, 

we may often be able to engage deep 

“cognitive simplicities.” Reformulation + Re -

Mediation can be an especially powerful 

synergy

5. Revising, revitalizing the fabric of learning 

activities: Phenomenological engagement; 

projects and extended personal enterprises 

(among other modes) will become much more 

prevalent.

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Personal Reflection

• No one can design or specify exactly what a 

computational literacy will eventually entail.

• Just get used to the fact that this is a “long -

haul” project.

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Final Words

Computational Literacy represents a powerful take 

on “the big picture” of computation’s potential 

effects on education, which has both scientific 

and practical advantages over other views. 

Keeping an eye on THAT big picture can be highly 

consequential over the long term. 

• Doing things that have true cumulative power

• Monitoring the state of our accomplishments

• “Filtering” out “noise” and distractions from the 

big picture 46
THE END

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Want to Know More?

• diSessa, A. A. (2000). Changing Minds: Computers, 

Learning, and Literacy. MIT Press.

• Contact: disessa@berkeley.edu – I can send you 

a paper expanding on this talk.

• The diSessa Foundation - A place to promote, 

collect, and coordinate work on the 

development of computational literacies. (Andy’s 

textbook on a computationally literate physics.) 

Computational -literacy.org -- Stay Tuned.

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Q & A

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