Subject Didactics of Computer Science I

Abstract

The unit "Subject Didactics of Computer Science I" addresses key contributions of computer science to general education. The course deals with the thoughtful choice of educational contents for computer science classes, which takes into account its comprehensibility for different age groups as well as didactic approaches suitable for a successful knowledge transfer.

Objective

The general objective of the course consists in highlighting the tight connection between the mathematical and algorithmic way of thinking and the approaches adopted by engineering disciplines, and in reflecting on teaching approaches for sustainable computer science teaching activities. The students understand the fundamental 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 as well as their advantages and disadvantages. They can handle inhomogeneous prior knowledge of the learners inside a class. Besides holding classes, the students do care about the individual pupil support. They encourage the autonomy of the learners, manage to work with diverse target groups and to establish a positive learning environment. The students are able to express themselves using a comprehensible and refined professional language, both in a spoken and a written way, and they master the basic terminology of computer science. Besides the English terms, they are familiar with the corresponding German expressions. The students are able to produce detailed, matured, linguistically correct and design-wise appealing teaching materials.

Content

The course "Subject Didactics of Computer Science I" addresses key contributions of computer science to general education. The chosen topics support the young learners in developing a unique and indispensable way of thinking, in enhancing their understanding of our world as well as in achieving university education entrance qualifications. The main topics of the course unit "Subject Didactics of Computer Science I" are the didactics of finite state automata, of formal languages and of the introduction to programming. The unit focuses on contents of computer science that contribute to general education. This involves the understanding of fundamental scientific concepts such as algorithm, complexity, determinism, computation, automata, verification, testing and programming language as well as the way to embed them into a scientifically sound and didactically sustainable computer science course. In a semester exercise, the students develop and document an adaptive teaching unit for computer science. They learn to employ the didactics methods and techniques that are introduced at the beginning of the semester.

Resources