Computational Thinking in Flanders’ Compulsory Education

Abstract

To modernise education, the Flemish government defined new learning goals that take account of 21st-century competences, in particular on ‘digital competence and media literacy’, of which ‘computational thinking and acting’ is one of the building blocks. Since September 2019, ‘computational thinking and acting’ has been compulsory in secondary schools in Flanders. The basic concepts decomposition, abstraction, pattern recognition and generalisation, and algorithm have been pushed forward. A closer look at the newly defined learning goals clarified that ‘acting’ is about basic knowledge in computer science and computational thinking practices. The learning objectives show that ‘computational thinking and acting’ is best addressed interdisciplinary in a socially relevant context. Based on the abundant scientific literature on the subject, we found these goals to fit into an international perspective. To support teachers, we are adjusting the teaching materials we already developed on physical computing, programming, and AI