Getting Experience in Computer Science Education - Guide to Teaching Computer Science: An Activity-Based Approach - page 237

discussion of different teaching approaches and micro-teaching, insufficient? The
answer to these questions is derived from several reasons.
First, teaching is an apprenticeship profession, such as Medicine. This implies
that part of the students' professional preparation should include experience in the
real environment in which they will teach in the future, that is, high school CS class-
es. In other words, an appropriate preparation toward CS teaching in the high school
should include practice in the high school with a close guidance of an expert; this
approach is clearly different than that of letting the students start teaching in real
high school CS classes just after the MTCS course, before gaining a proper practice.
Second, the answers to the above questions are also based on the active-learning
teaching approach (see Chap. 2); that is, the practicum provides the prospective CS
teachers with significant experience in real high school classes that none of the situ-
ations integrated either in micro-teaching courses or in the MTCS course, afford.
For example, during the practicum, the students may feel the need to use different
teaching methods, to which they were exposed in the MTCS course (see Chap. 7),
for teaching of different CS topics. That is, though many different teaching methods
are discussed in the MTCS course, only their actual implementation in real teach-
ing situations, together with a reflection process that follows it, can improve the
students' understanding with respect to the essence of CS teaching.
Third, the practicum is yet another opportunity in which the students can im-
prove their understanding of CS concepts. This improvement happens while they
prepare the lesson to be taught in the high school, while they are teaching the lesson,
and finally, in the reflection session that takes place, either with the in-school men-
tor or university mentor, after each lesson the student teaches in the school. Clearly,
it is important to gain this improved understanding prior to becoming a CS teacher.
Activity 106 below, to be facilitated in the MTCS course, illustrates this knowledge
construction related to CS.
Finally, from an organizational perspective, entering the school environment, as
an organization, is not a simple task. One has to become familiar with the school
culture, procedures, roles, behavior styles, professional language, and more. The
practicum provides the prospective CS teachers an opportunity to be exposed to the
organizational aspect of the school prior to becoming a member of the community
(either of the school he or she does the practicum in or of another school); this pre-
liminary familiarity may ease their entrance to the school as CS teachers.
Accordingly, the above reasoning delivers the message that the practicum consti-
tutes a significant stage in the construction process of the prospective CS teachers'
professional perception which also reduces gaps between theory and practice . In
other words, the practicum can help the students close gaps between the theory they
learn in the MTCS course and in other pedagogical courses and the actual practice
of CS teaching. Furthermore, it is important to increase the students' awareness to
these gaps as well as to different ways to bridge them.
13.2.2.2 MTCS Course's Perspective:
Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Reality
The MTCS course and the practicum are both important components of CS teacher