COMPUTATIONAL LITERACY, A LAYERED APPROACH FOR THE HUMANITIES

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in and recognition of the importance of Computational Literacy, a skill generally considered to be necessary for success in the 21st century. While much research has concentrated on requirements, tools, and teaching methodologies for the acquisition of Computational Literacy at basic educational levels, focus on higher levels of education has been much less prominent. The present paper considers the case of courses for higher education programs (undergraduate and graduate university levels) within the Humanities. A model is proposed which conceives of Computational Literacy as a layered set of skills rather than one single skill, where Computational Thinking is the first layer of the model. Skills acquisition at these layers can be tailored to the specific needs of students. The work presented here builds upon experience from courses for such students from the Humanities in which programming is taught as a tool for other purposes. Results, challenges and recommendation are discussed.