Communications of the ACM - Self managed systems
Why computational thinking should be integrated into the curriculum
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
When CS 1 is biology 1: crossdisciplinary collaboration as CS context
Proceedings of the fifteenth annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Modeling with Plato: the unified modeling language in a cultural context
Proceedings of the fifteenth annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Bio1 as CS1: evaluating a crossdisciplinary CS context
Proceedings of the 17th ACM annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
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Modern biology has transformed from an insular entity into an interdisciplinary science, which in turn demands interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary training for future work force in biology and life sciences. Computational thinking is a way of thinking that uses concepts and methodologies of computing to address questions in a broad range of subjects, and as such, computational thinking offers an important skill set in modern sciences. Despite its importance, the concept of computational thinking has generally been side-stepped in undergraduate biology education. Many students in life sciences are often weak in quantitative/computing skills and tend to avoid computing-orient courses. To address these issues, we incorporated computational thinking into a bioinformatics course for undergraduate life science majors. We developed comprehensive computer laboratory exercises that offer hands-on learning experience for the targeted student pool, and employed peer-assisted collaborative learning environment. Preliminary results of these explorative efforts will be helpful for others to teach computational thinking to biology students.