Subject Didactics of Computer Science II

Abstract

This course deals primarily with didactic aspects of computer science and its key contributions to general education nurturing the youths' development of a unique and indispensable way of thinking while at the same time leading to their understanding of our world and to higher education entrance qualifications.

Objective

This course deals primarily with didactic aspects of computer science and its key contributions to general education nurturing the youths' development of a unique and indispensable way of thinking while at the same time leading to their understanding of our world and to higher education entrance qualifications. Subject Didactics in Computer Science II deals with the adequate choice of educational content for computer science, taking in account its comprehensibility for different age groups and the didactic methods suitable for a succesful knowledge transfer. Within the scope of a semester exercise the students develop and document an adaptive teaching unit for computer science. They improve their practical knowledge of the teaching methods and techniques introduced in Subject Didactics in Computer Science I. The aim of the course is to combine the mathematical and algorithmic way of thinking with the approaches adopted by engineering disciplines. The students understand the basic concepts of computer science in the context of a broad and deep knowledge. Through this understanding, they manage to prepare teaching materials for a successful knowledge transfer and to pass their passion for the subject on to their pupils. The students know various teaching methods including their advantages and disadvantages. They can handle unequal levels of the learners' prior knowledge. Besides of holding classes the students do care about the individual pupil support. They encourage the autonomy of the learners. They manage to work with diverse target groups and to establish a positive climate for learning. The students are able to express themselves using a comprehensible and refined professional language, both spoken and written, and they master the basic terms of computer science. Besides of the English terminology they are familiar with the german expressions. The students are able to produce detailed, matured, linguistically correct and design-wise appealing teaching materials.

Content

The main themes of Subject Didactics of Computer Science II are Cryptology and Computability. The unit focuses on the content of computer science that conveys general educational values. this aims at the understanding of basic concepts of the science, such as - Algorithm - Complexity - Determinism - Nondeterminism - Probability - Computation

Resources