Computational Thinking and Social Studies Teacher Education: What, Why, and How

Why?

For the past two decades, social studies have faced a crisis of relevancy, squeezed first by the pressures of the No Child Left Behind Act, then by the ascendance of perceived high-value fields such as STEM (Fitchett & Heafner, 2010). In the current policy climate, then, social studies are not seen as essential--it is not part of workforce preparation, it does not prepare students for high-stakes assessments, and it does not speak to the other parts of the school curriculum. In fact, in one of our local school districts, social studies have been subsumed under literacy instruction; it has become secondary within the district’s K-12 curriculum and not a priority in its own right. Our concern over this de-emphasis of social studies is further amplified by the fact that our current politics, news, and economy are in a state of tremendous confusion and polarization: Amid so many claims of “fake news” what is real news? In a time of economic mixed signals—low unemployment and high corporate profits versus stagnant wages and rising costs of housing and healthcare—which policies and parties should one choose to support? Do extreme weather events correlate with the onset of catastrophic climate change or are they merely outliers in the distribution of normal weather patterns? The many fault lines of contemporary politics demonstrate the truth of James Russell Lowell’s famous distillation, that American democracy is not “a machine that would go of itself” (Moss, 2017). Social studies is needed now as much or more than ever to help students make sense of the society they are inheriting, and computational thinking can play a vital role.