Prof. Schulze from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science was a guest at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) in June 2015. He was invited by the Department of Computer Science to give a lecture on the subject of "Didactics of Computer Science".
His lecture, entitled "Output orientation for beginners in programming - challenges and consequences", addresses the realization that students in STEM subjects are increasingly having problems understanding mathematical expressions and transferring them into a programming language or spreadsheet. As a result, they are not adequately prepared to teach transfer skills.
The ACM/IEEE-CS (Association for Computing Machinery/ IEEE Computer Society) and the GI (Gesellschaft für Informatik) have issued a comprehensive recommendation regarding the required computer science skills. Since competencies are latent characteristics that cannot be directly observed and measured, usable indicators are required. Tasks fulfill this requirement well if they are objective, reliably observable and measurable and also valid for the competence to be measured. Neither ACM/IEEE-CS nor the GI specify concrete tasks. Their compilation from textbooks or creation is therefore left to each teacher.
Using the example of the transfer of mathematical expressions in the training of beginner programmers, Prof. Schulze showed how the gap between the competencies and the tasks can be closed using task types. The results are task collections and task type descriptions that are reminiscent of the famous Russian and American task collections and, due to their construction, are almost universally potentially testable by computer.
At the ETH Zurich, Prof. Schulze's presentation was seen as forward-looking for cooperation with the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences in subject didactics. He will therefore be back in Switzerland in October to deepen the cooperation with a further lecture.
Contact:
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Jörg Schulze
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science'
Mail: joerg.schulze(at)hszg.de