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The integration of reflective processes in teaching processes is a creative task. Ac-
tivity 43 illustrates how reflective activities can become a learning process both
from the learners' and the teachers' perspective. Specifically, teachers can reflect
on the teaching process of critical concepts that were difficult for learners to grasp
and on his or her usage of different teaching tools. In addition, an ongoing reflection
may increase teachers' awareness to pupils' perspective.
Activity 43: Reflective Activity in Computer Science Education
The activity is based on the following case study that should be presented first
to the students.
After a computer science high school class had written a test on relatively advanced
computer science topics (like linked lists or pushdown automaton), its teacher real-
ized that the pupils' achievements in the test were low and that their solutions did not
indicate the expected understanding of these concepts.
The following four stages are based on this case study. It is recommended
to summarize each stage with a reflective discussion and to publish students'
products in the course Web site.
• Stage A: Teacher's reflection on test failure
The students are divided into small groups and are asked to:
1. Write down a list of reasons that can explain the pupils' relatively low
achievements.
2. Classify the list of reasons into two groups: Teacher-oriented reasons
and learner-oriented reasons. Reflect on the classification process.
Was the classification process evident? In what cases did you hesitate?
Why did you hesitate?
3. Suggest at least five questions that can guide a teacher's reflective
process on his or her class' failure.
• Stage B: Design of a reflective activity for a class after a test failure
The students are divided into small groups and are asked to suggest how
they, as computer science teachers, can use reflective processes to support
their pupils' learning with respect to two aspects: (1) pupils' learning pro-
cesses and (2) pupils' understanding of the learned concepts.
Specifically, the students' task is to design a reflective activity for a high
school class that aims at leading the pupils to reflect on their own strength-
ens and weaknesses, while taking into the consideration the two above-
mentioned aspects.
• Stage C: Reflection on the reflective activity designed by a teacher after the
test failure. The continuation of the case study is presented to the students:
The teacher of the said class decided to use a reflective process to scaf-
fold pupils' learning processes, to improve their understanding of the said
computer science concepts, and to improve the test achievements. For this
purpose, the teacher asked the pupils to answer the following questions:
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