Schools go smart with CT

Kochi: With technology making deep inroads into daily life, smart learning and smart schools are fast replacing ordinary schools.

Educationists and the 'smart schools' are now in the process of identifying key issues facing them in imparting high quality education to prepare children for a new generation of skills and tests.

As part of this, Computational Thinking (CT) has been identified as one subject which helps children analyse and structure information better and understand how the technology and machines around them work.

Smartclass Educational Services, an education technology start-up, has introduced CTI (Computational Thinking and Innovation) Labs in this direction. "It is a unique initiative to enhance existing learning levels among students, making them future ready through a proprietary technology designed to teach children through the building blocks of computation. Computational Thinking provides school students with mental skills they can use to solve an array of problems that range from seeing situations in their entirety or as inter-connected parts or by breaking problems into smaller parts in order to solve them. Computational thinking strengthens a student's analytical skills and problem-solving abilities. The aim of developing computational thinking among students is to arm them with the skills to design and program technology to solve challenges. By starting young, children will be better prepared to thrive in a technology-filled world which is moving at a fast pace. Instead of only being passive technology users, they can become active inventors and innovators," said Roshni Nair, state head, Smartclass Educational Services.

She said that the CTI Lab curriculum is based on computational thinking skills mapped to NCERT framework for computer literacy. This framework also includes learner-centric activities for one lab period as micro-learning nuggets that include 4-5 lab sessions per grade like computer science (Grade1-8), robotics (Level 1-4) and creating stories using creator (grade 2-4).

According to Dr G Santhosh Kumar, head, department of computer science, Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat), it is high time the schools embraced computational thinking. "CT is the fundamental aspect of computer science. Today computers are introduced in schools as machines and taught in that way. Students need to be taught about the algorithms from where they will easily pick up. CT is applicable not only in mathematics or computer science but also in economics, commerce, law and social science and students can shine in these fields by mastering CT," said Dr Santhosh Kumar.

He said that under CT, large problems are broken into pieces and each sub-piece is solved separately. "Then they are merged and the  main solution arrived at. There will be already known patterns in parts of these problems which could be solved easily," Dr Santhosh Kumar said and added that already 100 school teachers have been trained in CT across the state by Cusat with the support Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).

In another new generation initiative Smartclass has come out with a diagnostic test n-CAT which provides a detailed analysis of topic-wise conceptual understanding by students in class. It also tests the skill level(both knowledge and test-taking) required for high score and also helps in modifying teaching approach for each student to help overcome scoring gaps. "It helps teachers also to identify the shortcomings of children and realign their teaching methods," said Roshni Nair.