Bridging the Gap - Teaching Computing in a Dynamic World Bruria Haberman Computer Science Dept. H.I.T and Davison Institute of Science Education Weizmann

Bridging the Gap -

Teaching Computing in a Dynamic World

Bruria Haberman

Computer Science Dept. H.I.T and

Davison Institute of Science Education Weizmann Institute of Science

Bruria Haberman ISSEP 2006 2

The field of computing

has been rapidly developing

since its recognition

as a stand-alone discipline


The dynamics of the field has led to:

An inadequate external image

The existence of a huge gap between school and the "real world" of computing.


A large communication gap separates us from the masses who want to use

computing technology.

To cross it we need to learn

to speak to them about things

they care about (Denning & McGettrick, 2005)


The dynamics of the field posed challenges in educating newcomers.

Educators have been deliberating how to portray the field to others in a compelling way,

and how to make computer science studies more appealing to

prospective students.

The new educational imperative: The new educational imperative: Improving high school computer Improving high school computer

science educationscience education

Final report of the CSTA Curriculum

Improvement Task Force, February 2005

Stephenson, Gal-Ezer, Haberman, & Verno

http://csta.acm.org/Publications/White_Paper07_06.pdf

http://csta.acm.org/Publications/White_Paper07_06.pdf


What is the existing gap?

Pedagogic approaches aimed at bridging the gap.

Exemplary educational computing programs operated in Israeli schools.

Outline of PresentationOutline of Presentation


The Gap between School

and the Real-World Of Computing


The gap relates to:

The external (public) image School image Students’ conceptions

The educational milieu Curriculum Teacher competence Style of learning Norms and processes


Inadequate image of computingInadequate image of computing

The school image

CS is considered as a second-class subject compared with natural sciences.

The status of CS education in high schools has gradually declined and is no longer considered essential as an independent subject.

CS been integrated with cross-curricular themes as a result of the misconception that CS is a tool only for other subjects' studies



Students' conceptions

The current external image does not stimulate an appreciation of the full depth and breadth of computing.

It is neither attractive to CS majors nor to prospective students.



Students' conceptions

Introductory courses are about programming and technology, which are interwoven in almost every core course.

Misconception - "computer science equals programming".

Students' expectations - emphasis on programming languages and applications.


The Educational The Educational Milieu Milieu

Curriculum

There is a gap between the content learned in school and contemporary computing.

The fundamentals and the core technologies that are introduced in school are essential to create a solid basis for further studies of the field;

However, they rarely resemble the state-of-the-art computing R&D as well as the emerging directions in the field.


The Educational The Educational Milieu Milieu

First language

One main question relates to the choice of the suitable programming language to teach the fundamentals to novices.

Programming languages and tools used to teach CS have rapidly changed and have become increasingly complex - it is difficult for individual CS teachers to keep up.


The Educational The Educational MilieuMilieuTeacher competence

There is a gap between the desired professional profile of a CS teacher and the teachers' actual professional education.

Recruiting competent CS teachers might be problematic due to:

lack of adequate teacher training programs

relatively low pay (compared to high-tech industries)


The Educational The Educational MilieuMilieu

Teacher competence

The majority of school teachers are not members of the computing community of practice lack of –

academic and practical industrial experience practical "hacker-style" knowledge.

Consequently, the students might not consider the teachers as representatives of the real-world of computing that they desire to be acquainted with.


The Educational The Educational MilieuMilieuStyle of learning

The traditional teaching and learning- acquiring explicit knowledge based on a thorough understanding of the topic learned.

Students should be educated to become self-learners who are capable of navigating in the rapidly growing world of knowledge.

A breadth-oriented learning style, according to which the initial exposure to an unfamiliar topic will be accomplished by getting acquainted only with its essence.



Software design

The software design and development processes that students experience at school rarely resemble actual R&D industrial processes.

The students are not acquainted with real-world professional norms.

The school labs are unable to provide infrastructures characteristic of high-tech industry.



Software design

Usually, the students lack the experience of team-work.

They develop individual projects according to specifications that are provided by the teacher instead of by a real external client.

Their products are rarely applicable to real-world situations.


Challenging Questions

How should the curriculum be organized and how should computer science teachers cope with the increasing complexity and rapid changes characterizing the field?

Which pedagogic strategies and instructional tools should be applied to reduce the complexity and instability?

How should the educational system cope with prospective students' preconceptions and expectations?

How should the students be better educated regarding the long-standing fundamental and core principles of the discipline (emphasizing that they are above specific technologies)

How can we prevent them from acquiring a narrow/obsolete view of the contemporary computing?


Pedagogic Approaches


Pedagogic approaches

Reducing complexity and managing Instability

Rebuilding the external image

Application of learning theories to computer science education



Reducing complexity and managing Instability

Fundamentals vs. up-to-date practices

First language

Blending formal and informal learning


Reducing Complexity and Reducing Complexity and Managing InstabilityManaging Instability

Emphasizing fundamentals vs. up-to-date practices

Ben-Ari (2005) stated that the public expectation of CS educators to "bridging

the gap" is due to the lack of public legitimacy "to dictate a learning sequence

that is not affected by trends and fashions."



This is not the situation with physics education from the point of view of the legitimacy of the curriculum and the teacher.

Physics students in both high school and in their first year at the university spend much time studying "old theories" (i.e. Newtonian mechanics) and solving associated problems.



“This material is hardly relevant to the current activities of practicing physicists,

but it would be highly unusual for a student, parent, or prospective employer

to complain and to demand that introductory students begin by studying

relevant subjects like the quantum mechanics of semiconductors or black

holes" (Ben-Ari, 2005)



The legitimacy of organizing the curriculum around: fundamental (and lasting) concepts problem-solving methods independent of

specific programming languages

along with the practical implementation in attractive environments

may assist teachers to cope with the increasing complexity and rapid changes in the field.



Choosing the preferred first language

Teaching up-to-date programming languages (e.g. Java) requires

suitable environments that are both simple and stable

in order to teach the essential concepts of object-oriented programming.



To reduce complexity, the computer science education community must find a way

"to separate the essential characteristics of object-oriented programming from those

accidental features that are merely artifacts of the particular ways in which

technology is implemented today" (Roberts, 2004)


Blending formal and informal learning

Enrichment programs in which students encounter representatives of the

computing community of practice and experience real-world software

development:

Can assist in achieving legitimacy for the fundamentals-based school-curriculum

Enable the teachers to organize school learning sequences that are not affected by trends and fashions (Yehezkel & Haberman, 2006)



Rebuilding the external image

Great principles of computing curricula (Denning, 2004)

Alternative organizing themes (Denning & McGettrick, 2004)

Interdisciplinary approach (Science 2020)

Computer science should portray itself in the same manner that the mature sciences do,

namely with a principle-based approach that

promotes understanding from the beginning

shows how the science transcends particular technologies

We should use a set of interwoven stories about the structure and the

behavior of the field elements (Denning 2004)


Simple framework of Great Principles in Computing Curricula

(Denning, 2004)

The framework provides a stable context for the core technologies of computing, and relates to:

Mechanics – how computation works; Design – how we organize computation Practices – one must be competent when

constructing computations.



The framework aims at overcoming difficulties:

Understandability- the framework is not dependent on the growing number of core technologies

Curriculum complexity- aims at resolving newcomers' difficulties such as "trauma of the first language“

Computing practices- offers a new balance between concepts and practice

Public image- aims at dispelling misconceptions

Rebuilding the External ImageRebuilding the External Image


Recently, Denning and McGettrick (2005), and Denning et al (2006) stimulated a debate about how to reverse, once and for all, the CS=programming myth.

Innovation, experimental science, and cross-discipline relationships – alternatives for organizing themes (instead of programming).



Interdisciplinary approach

Computer science should not be taught isolated from mathematics and other sciences.

Students who major in computer science need to acquire a scientific-engineering interdisciplinary approach to solve complex problems in various domains (Stevenson, 1993).

Science 2020 http://research.microsoft.com/towards2020science/background_overview.htm



Pedagogic approaches:

Application of learning theories to CS-ED

Constructivism (Ben-Ari, 2001)

Situated Learning (Ben-Ari, 2003, 2004)

Situated Constructionism (Papert & Harel, 1991)

Systemic Inventive Thinking (Helfman & Eylon, 2003)


Constructivism in CS-Ed(Ben-Ari, 2001)

Novices possess an inadequate knowledge of programming and alternative (mis)conceptions of basic concepts because of a lack of viable mental models of the computer.

The common difficulties experienced by novices could be explained by too much and/or too early use of the computer.

Programming exercises should be delayed until class discussion has enabled students to construct a good model of the computer.


Constructivism in CS-Ed

Models must be explicitly taught before abstractions.

Teachers must guide students in the construction of a viable model of the learned concept, so that they will be able to interpret new situations in terms of the model and accordingly, formulate correct responses.


Situated Learning in CS-ED

Many specialists in education have come to the conclusion that cognitive approaches –

which investigate the mental processes of the individual learner-

need to be supplanted, or at least supplemented, by social approaches-

which investigate the effect on learners of the social interactions with the classroom and elsewhere

(Ben-Ari, 2004).



CS educators should devote time to analyzing what actually happens in real communities of practice, and then to create learning activities that simulate such tasks as well as possible within the constraints of a school.

Learning activities should be influenced by the nature of the activities that occur in the community of practice that students will encounter in the future rather than by its actual detailed practices.



Students should be given tasks that could deepen their sense of meaningful participation in the community, such as working with given complex programs instead of just writing toy programs.

Students will grant the teacher legitimacy as a representative of the community of practice to which they aspire.


Situating Constructionism

Meaningful learning-by-making occurs "in a context where the learner is consciously

engaged in constructing a public entity“(Papert & Harel, 1991)

Project-based learning and software development assignments performed by students in

meaningful contexts while applying Systematic Inventive Thinking methods

(Helfman & Eylon, 2003)

may facilitate meaningful learning as well as contribute to making computing more appealing.


Concluding RemarksConcluding Remarks"I believe that CS education must fundamentally

change in order to equip the student with a firm, deep and broad theoretical background,

long before specialization is undertaken.

We are grown up now and with growing up comes the responsibility to build a mature system of education...

I hope that ten or twenty years from now, the recipient of his award will be able to report on a

convergence of the educational practices in computer science with those in other scientific and engineering

disciplines"

Ben-Ari's keynote address (the winner of SIGCSE's Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer

Science Education, 2005)


Teaching Computing in Israeli High

Schools


Teaching Computing in Israeli Teaching Computing in Israeli High-SchoolsHigh-Schools

Computer science – Academic track

Software Engineering – Tech track

Computational Science - Academic track


The computer science program

The program emphasizes the foundations of algorithmic

Introduces concepts and problem-solving methods independently of specific computers and programming languages, along with the practical implementation of those concepts and methods in programming languages.

The 5-unit (450 hours) program is modular: Fundamentals of Computer Science (2-units; 180 hours) Software Design (1-unit; 90 hours), Second Paradigm/Applications (1-unit; 90 hours) Theory (1-unit; 90 hours).


The Software Engineering Program

Aims at exposing the students to a fundamental scientific domain whose principles are characteristic of algorithmic thinking as well as system-level perception. It introduces students to scientific methods, principles of design, and implementation of computer systems.

The program consists of the following components: (a) an elective topic in natural sciences, (b) computer science (presented above), (c) an elective advanced specialized computer science topic.


The Software Engineering Program

The specialization phase - Design & Programming of Software Systems

Information Management Systems Computer Graphics Operating Systems Expert Systems Web Services Network Systems


The Software Engineering Program Students study the advanced topic for 450 hours

during the two last years of high school.

Theoretical principles and practical experimental issues of the topic are introduced and practiced in the laboratory.

Learning of a programming language/environment that is suitable for implementing the theoretical material of the advanced topic.

During the third year, students are required to develop as a final assignment a comprehensive software project.


The computational science program Designed to provide students with very broad-based,

in-depth scientific knowledge along with the foundations and skills needed for using the computer as a scientific tool.

Solving complex problems and in the computerized control of experiments, creating models and simulations of natural phenomena in various fields.

Final assignment, a comprehensive simulation software project.

In contrast to the software engineering program, which is organized around the principles and methods of software development as the main theme, the computational science program emphasizes the use of the computer as a scientific tool.


Thank You

Documents

Bridging the Gap - Teaching Computing in a Dynamic World Bruria Haberman Computer Science Dept. H.I.T and Davison Institute of Science Education Weizmann