Beyond computational thinking: Investigating CT roles in the 21st century skill efficacy

Abstract

The adoption of robotics has been becoming prominent in computational thinking literature. The modularity characteristics of lego robotics, for example, enables learners to construct their understanding of the abstraction of complex robotics parts. Educational organisations that adopt computing would be likely to introduce computational thinking as an integrated part of the regular curriculum. Organisations in the UK and the United States, for example, conceptualise the delivery of computing curricula in connection with the development of computational thinking skills that all students must learn in the 21st century. This paper is a literature review report aggregating publications from outstanding outlets. Focusing on investigating more deeply about the roles of learning computational thinking using robotics-based media, in hopes of finding new findings that can support the advance of 21st-century skills. The results show that computational thinking using robotics-based media can foster interest in the STEM field, which includes some skills like creative thinking, problem-solving, collaborative learning, algorithmic and critical thinking, abstraction, and debugging. The skills are essential for children to develop themselves in the 21st century, taking into account the learning material and the right learning approach.