Introduction—What Is this Guide About? - Guide to Teaching Computer Science: An Activity-Based Approach - page 1

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Introduction—What Is this Guide About?

Abstract

This chapter presents the motivation for writing this guide, the Methods of
Teaching Computer Science (MTCS) course, for which the guide can serve as a
textbook, the structure of the guide, and how it can be used in different frame-
works of computer science education.

1.1 Introduction

This guide is about computer science teaching. Specifically, it focuses on the Methods
of Teaching Computer Science (MTCS) course, in which high school computer sci-
ence teachers get their pedagogical education related to computer science teaching.
Though the guide is organized as a textbook for the MTCS course, most of its ideas
can be easily adapted to the teaching of any computer science topic in any framework
and any level, from middle school through high school to the university level. Accord-
ing to Abramson ( 2011 ), “This topic is directed at those who teach computer science
(CS) in high schools or undergraduate classrooms.…[and] is a valuable resource for
high school and undergraduate teachers of introductory CS courses.”
Accordingly, the computer science teaching aspects presented in this guide are
not restricted to any specific curriculum and can be applied in the teaching of any
subject, including Advanced Placement (AP) contents. However, in order to provide
a common base for the entire guide readership, most of the illustrations presented in
this guide are based on fundamental computer science concepts; nevertheless, they
can be easily adjusted to any other computer science topic. Section 1.5 specifies
how this guide can be used by different populations of computer science educators:
instructors of the MTCS course, computer science instructors in the university, in-
structors of in-service teacher professional development programs, and high school
computer science teachers.