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the best, to principles of science teaching. This might result from the fact that a
well-defined international standard for computer science school curricula and for
computer science teacher preparation does not exist (Ragonis 2009 ).
To meet the challenge of preparing future computer science teachers, this guide
can be used either as a teaching guide or as a textbook (or both) for the MTCS
course. Specifically, the guide presents a conceptual framework, together with de-
tailed implementation guidelines, for general computer science teaching situations
as well as for the MTCS course. Practically, its writing style enables immediate
implementation of its ideas in the MTCS course as well as in other computer sci-
ence teaching education frameworks.
From a personal perspective, our own motivation for writing this guide is based
on three decades of teaching experience, management, and involvement in teacher
preparation programs. Anecdotally, we mention that when we started building the
MTCS course in our relative institutions around 30 years ago, it was almost im-
possible to find any model for high school computer science teacher preparation
program around the world. Thus, in fact, this guide enables us to share with the pro-
fessional community of computer science educators the accumulated professional
knowledge we have gained over these years.
1.3
MTCS Course
This section presents the Methods of Teaching Computer Science course—the
MTCS course as it is referred to in this guide. We present a general overview of
the knowledge structure required from pre-service computer science teachers, the
course population, the course rationale, including detailed objectives, and recom-
mended teaching methods to be used in the course. Chapter 14 further describes
how to design an MTCS course and suggests two possible syllabi for the course.
1.3.1
MTCS Course Overview
Teacher preparation programs are usually based on general pedagogical knowledge,
subject matter knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and practicum
in real classes. PCK is one category of Shulman's Teacher Knowledge Base Model
(Shulman 1986 ), and it refers to what a teacher is required to know in order to teach
a certain subject matter: how to make it understandable, learners' preconceptions
and misconceptions, and strategies for coping with learners' misconceptions (Shul-
man 1986 , 1990 ).
From this perspective, the MTCS course aims at broadening the students' PCK
and sets the basis for the in-school training that takes place after it. In other words,
based on the working assumption that the computer science prospective teach-
ers learn the discipline of computer science and general pedagogy topics in other
courses, the MTCS course focuses on the uniqueness of teaching computer science.
In this context, Gal-Ezer and Harel ( 1998 ) claim that “beyond the mastery of core
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