Research in Computer Science Education - Guide to Teaching Computer Science: An Activity-Based Approach - page 61

• The Innovation and Technology in Computer Science (ITiCSE) conference pro-
ceedings 3 . The papers are published also in the ACM digital library
• The Informatics in Secondary Schools: Evolution and Perspective (ISSEP) con-
ference proceedings 4
• Inroads—ACM SIGCSE Bulletin 5
• The ACM Inroads magazine, launched in 2010 6
• The Computer Science Education Journal (CSEJ) 7
• The ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE) 8
• The Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education (WiPSCE) web-
site 9

4.3 MTCS Course Activities

Activities 25-29, to be facilitated by the prospective computer science teachers in
the MTCS course, explore the research in computer science education from a peda-
gogical perspective. The instructor of the MTCS course can decide what activities
fit his or her class as well as on the order of the activities.

Activity 25: Exploration of a Computer Science Education Research Work on
Learners' Understanding of Basic Computer Science Topics
The general target of this activity is to present to the students an example of
a research work that deals with learners' understanding of variables—one of
the basic computer science concepts, and specifically, to focus on alternative
conceptions, mistakes, and misconceptions related to variables.
The details of this activity are presented in Activity 44 (Sect. 6.3), which
explores learners' alternative conceptions. When this activity is facilitated
in the MTCS course, it is recommended to highlight the direct contribution
of research in computer science education to teachers' knowledge on learn-
ers' conceptions and the consecutive actions that they can take based on this
understanding.

3 The 2014 conference website is: http://iticse2014.it.uu.se/
4 The 2014 conference website is: http://www.issep2014.org/
5 See http://portal.acm.org/toc.cfm?id=J688
6 See http://portal.acm.org/browse_dl.cfm?linked=1&part=magazine&idx=J1268&coll=portal&d
l=ACM&CFID=77578246&CFTOKEN=38064848
7 See http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/08993408.asp
8 See http://portal.acm.org/browse_dl.cfm?linked=1&part=transaction&idx=J1193&coll=portal&
dl=ACM
9 See http://www.wipsce.org/2014/index.php, the 2014 conference website