Traditional to Transformative

Empowering Dducation with Computational Thinking

Abstract

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic upended global routines, compelling a re-evaluation of established systems and daily life. Educational institutions faced the challenge of transitioning traditional teaching and learning practices to online platforms. This paper presents the continued collaboration, catalysed by COVID-19 lockdown, of industry partners, Opti-Num Solutions, MathWorks and the University of the Witwatersrand (School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering), on the second-year computing for process engineering course. The course lends itself favourably to online learning and assessments and is the ideal case study to explore the delivery of computational thinking-based coursework. We present findings from 5 years of this collaboration with purposeful interventions to enhance student learning and feature computational thinking relevant to the current climate. This includes the implementation of self-paced online courses and integration of an automated assessment tool. Results from a student survey show that approximately 95% of students had little to no experience in programming due to the absence of related courses in high school, limited opportunities, lack of resources, and no prior need or requirement to learn programming. However, after completing the self-paced online course, most students felt competent and empowered in their programming skills showing that these and future interventions impact computational learning.