Teaching Planning - Guide to Teaching Computer Science: An Activity-Based Approach - page 210

In this spirit, the Activities 87-90, to be facilitated in the MTCS course, aim to
explore the issues addressed in this chapter. In addition, the different considerations
presented in the chapter should be integrated in other course activities when appro-
priate, especially the planning teaching of a lesson, which should be practiced along
the course several times.
Activity 87: Dividing a Computer Science Topic into Components
In this activity, the students work on one specific computer science topic, for
example, the if statement, loops, or lists. The work is carried out first indi-
vidually, then in groups, and finally, in the course plenum.
Specifically, the students are asked to:
1. Choose a topic from the curriculum they intend to teach.
2. List the subtopics of the said topic.
3. Order the subtopics on a teaching time line and to explain what, in their
opinion, should be taught first, what subtopic/s should be taught after that,
the teaching of what topic can be postponed, etc.
4. Specify difficulties learners are expected to face. If needed, the students
should change the ordered list of subtopics presented in stage (2) in a way
that helps learners overcome these difficulties.
Activity 88: Time Allocation, Team Work
This activity can be facilitated either following Activity 87 or independently.
A list of subtopics of some topic that should be taught to a specific class is
presented. The students are asked to determine the time needed to teach each
subtopic. The term teaching should include the actual teaching of each sub-
topic, learners' practicing of each subtopic, and the assessment of learners'
understanding.
After the students work on the activity in groups, the different suggestions
of each group are presented together with the group's considerations. It is
important to highlight differences between the groups and the reasons that led
them to determine different time allocations.
Activity 89: Plan a First Lesson about a Topic/Subtopic
The students are asked to plan the first lesson of a topic which is new to a
specific class of learners. It is optional to facilitate this activity with respect
to a specific teaching method discussed in the course. For example, when dif-
ferent usages of the Internet in computer science education are addressed in
the MTCS course (see Chap. 8), students can be asked to plan the first lesson
about array sorting based on learners' exploration of Internet simulations.