From In-the-Head to In-the-World: Frameworks for Understanding and Applying Computational Thinking

In the five decades since Papert coined the term Computational Thinking (CT), it has become a core framework for thinking about learning, problem-solving, design, and creativity. Although CT is most commonly, and initially, associated with the cognitive orientations involved in coding and learning to code, it also includes situated and critical processes related to computational problem solving. Herein we unpack ways researchers in different fields and points in time have organized CT. We include creative coding as a uniquely generative lens for rethinking CT, outlining its potential as an expressive, constructionist, and culturally situated practice. In doing so, we explore how CT can function as a literacy that supports meaning-making and creative inquiry across domains. By juxtaposing these models in text and diagrams, we offer a visual and theoretical synthesis of how different framings and perspectives on CT shape our understanding and use of the construct across contexts and disciplines—inviting a more expansive view of what becoming computationally literate makes possible, particularly in authentic constructionist learning environments.