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The “Power of Computational Thinking in Mathematics and Data Science Education” working group held its inaugural meeting at PME-NA 45 in Reno, Nevada. The skills and practices of CT can empower teachers to emphasize abstraction, automation, modeling, and simulations as their students investigate relationships in mathematics and data science. The focus of the three sessions was to advance conversations about the integration of CT in mathematics and DS education with aims to launch new collaborations. Our overarching goal of providing more equitable access to authentic mathematical problem solving through guided the design and facilitation of the working group sessions. Participants experienced three CT-integrated data science tasks on Day 1, created working visuals of the synergies across the disciplines on Day 2, and proposed directions for future research on Day 3. 

The evolving digital world requires scientifically literate citizens who are able to critically evaluate Internet sources of varying credibility. Instruction on evidence evaluation in postsecondary education often focuses on peer-review as a singular indicator of credibility. With increased access to web-based scientific information, students must also learn to think critically in real-time about the dimensions of credibility. This study describes the integration of sInvestigator, a computational evidence-based scientific reasoning tool, with a class of 32 students in an undergraduate honors course focused on socio-scientific issues. A cross-disciplinary team of researchers with expertise in science education, scientific literacy, and evidence evaluation developed and implemented an online questionnaire to measure students’ development of digital scientific literacy. After using sInvestigator to evaluate sources of scientific evidence based on publisher reputation, author competence, and author objectivity, students were better able to assess the credibility of online information. Results of this study also confirm the potential to authentically assess students’ use of author and publisher information to evaluate digital scientific sources. The need for further research on the operationalization and measurement of digital scientific literacy is discussed.