Instructional Design and Practice of Data Analysis Course for the Cultivation of Computational Thinking Ability

Abstract

Due to the rapid development of computer, network and data processing, computational thinking (CT) ability has played an important element for talent cultivation in the era of big data since it came out. As computer foundation course, Data Analysis Courses has a certain degree of fit with computational thinking training. In order to cultivate computational thinking, our team tried to integrate computational thinking into computer basic courses. To begin with, this paper analyzes the convergence of Data Analysis Courses and computational thinking, and puts forward the instructional design of Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) data analysis course from the perspective of computational thinking. Then based on the problem-based learning, the instructional design is carried out from three levels: comprehension and understanding, simple application and comprehensive application. Finally, aiming at improving students’ CT ability, the teaching activities are designed progressively in computational thinking knowledge, CT skills, CT consciousness and CT strategy. Based on the above work, we carried out the Data Analysis course for the development of computational thinking. After a semester of practice, the results demonstrates that the teaching model proposed in this article enhances the students' CT ability significantly, and Data Analysis Courses is of great significance to the cultivation of students' CT.