Grand Challenges for Computing Education in the 21st Century

Over the past 50 years, computing education researchers and practitioners have tackled many important challenges. We've studied how to develop interest in computing. We've invented better ways of teaching programming. We've found ways of improving and accelerating assessment. We've invented programming languages and tools that support more effective learning. And we've begun to understand the inequities in CS teaching and computing culture that limit the reach of all of these activities. While these innovations have been critical and impactful, they have primarily focused on the teaching and learning of programming. However, I argue that the problems humanity faces in the 21st century, such as the climate crisis, disinformation, and economic disruption from automation, would benefit far more from research on teaching aspects of computing other than programming. I discuss four specific aspects about teaching computing that our community should investigate: the limitations of computing, data literacy, responsible computing, and preparing teaching teachers to these ideas. I argue that each of these is critical to human progress and possibly to the survival of humanity in the next century.