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In our first workshop we will plan a dinner party and then introduce two important reflexes - abstraction and decomposition - and several concrete skills for our computational thinking repertoire: flow charts, stepwise refinement, blackboxes, pseudocode. Then we will plan our party again. Our first problem set (due next class) will provide an opportunity to practice these skills.

** black boxes, flow charts, stepwise refinement, decomposition, abstraction, pseudocode, layers

** black boxes, flow charts, stepwise refinement, decomposition, abstraction, pseudocode, layers

The "if-then" construct in flow charts points us toward the basic logic that lies at the heart of computational thinking. In this class we extend the ideas introduced last week.

** Solutions as flow of sequence, decision, and repetition. Logical operators AND/OR/NOT, truth tables, basic operations.

** Solutions as flow of sequence, decision, and repetition. Logical operators AND/OR/NOT, truth tables, basic operations.

How many and how likely? Another basic tool in our repertoire will be the ability to count things systematically.

** combinations, permutations, basic probability, joint probability, independent events, exhaustive, mutually exclusive, conditional probability

** combinations, permutations, basic probability, joint probability, independent events, exhaustive, mutually exclusive, conditional probability

blah blah blah

** iteration, brute force, divide and conquer

** iteration, brute force, divide and conquer

Once we have learned how to solve problems by carefully iterating over all possible cases, we can add some sophistication to our repertoire by more advanced approaches to repetitive problem solving.

** recursion, backtracking, heuristics, dynamic programming, bounding solutions

** recursion, backtracking, heuristics, dynamic programming, bounding solutions

Process and flow is only half of our tactical tool kit. The other half is creative ways to structure information so that it is easier to operate on. In this workshop and the next we will meet a whole menagerie of useful "data structures." We will see that having your information in the right form is well over half the battle.

** lists, queues, stacks, maps

** lists, queues, stacks, maps

What do genealogy and kinship, blockchain, the internet and social networks, and rumours have in common? In this workshop we learn about linked structures and decentralization, among other things.

** arrays, linked lists trees, graphs, hashes

** arrays, linked lists trees, graphs, hashes

A large fraction of the problems that lend themselves to computational thinking can be expressed in terms of sorting and searching. We'll learn a lot about these two basic algorithmic processes this week.

** sorting and searching

** sorting and searching

How do you get from here to there? What's the best path from here to there? We'll extend our algorithmic repertoire but thinking about moving through data structures and finding best solutions.

** navigation, coloring, ranking, optimization

** navigation, coloring, ranking, optimization

But how do these machines work? How does one build a thinking machine? We traverse a wide territory today from the basics of how logic circuits can add numbers together to how a robot can learn to see.

** architecture, operating systems, memory

** architecture, operating systems, memory

How does computational thinking help us think about language? How does linguistics help us think about getting machines to do things? That's this week's topic.

** linguistics, variables, paradigms

** linguistics, variables, paradigms

Let's review where we've been and where we can go from here.

** ALL

** ALL