Integrated View at the MTCS Course Organization: The Case of Recursion - Guide to Teaching Computer Science: An Activity-Based Approach - page 226

Fig. 12.2 Printing instructions of the top-down frames model illustration
least four ways: (1) becoming members of the computer science education com-
munity, (2) increasing teachers' awareness to learners' conceptions and difficul-
ties (strengthen Shulman's (1986) model category of knowledge of learners), (3)
strengthening teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge (Shulman 1986 ), and (4)
broadening teachers' teaching toolbox.
As Settle ( 2014 ) points out “the combination of approaches for teaching recur-
sion and the degree to which students master the topic has generated a significant
body of work in the computing education community” (p. 1).
Since recursion is a central computer science concept, as explained at the begin-
ning of this chapter, computer science teachers' familiarity with research on learn-
ing and teaching recursion may also contribute to their professional development
in each of the above four ways. Specifically, since recursion plays a central role in
almost all introductory computer science courses, teachers should be familiar with
this educational research area if they wish to become members of the computer sci-
ence education community; they must be aware of learners' conceptions of recur-
sion and difficulties learners encounter when learning recursion; their pedagogical
content knowledge should include examples of recursion and teaching strategies
for recursion; and, finally, computer science teachers should broaden their teaching
toolbox with respect to recursion. Clearly, these arguments are also applicable for
prospective computer science teachers, and therefore, we suggest addressing this
research area in the MTCS course. Activities 94 and 95 can be facilitated in the
MTCS course to achieve these purposes.