Why Teaching Informatics in Schools is as Important as Teaching Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Juraj Hromkovi c Bjrn Steffen

Department of Computer Science, ETH Zurich ISSEP 2011, Bratislava

Introduction

Three fundamental questions have to be answered for a given school subject:

1

Does the subject contribute to the understanding of our world? How are the pupils prepared for dealing with jobs and duties in society? How important is the teaching of the subject to successfully study at a university? Do universities expect some fundamental knowledge of the discipline? What is the contribution of the subject to the development of the way of thinking and the ability to solve various kinds of tasks and problems?

1 Understanding the World Around Us

The limits of automation and the concept of algorithms Quantitative laws of information processing and the concept of computational complexity

2 Preparation for University Studies (I)

Scientic disciplines are asked to handle a huge amount of data generate knowledge from the data collected by experiments, measurements, and assessments do simulations, in order to forecast development Informatics is the scientic discipline making mathematics to a technology All technical systems are controlled by programs

2 Preparation for University Studies (II)

The knowledge about the capabilities and limits of computer science and the way of working in informatics is at least as useful for the study at a university as any other classical subject of high school curricula.

3 A Way of Thinking and Working

Informatics ... supports the development of the exact way of thinking and working in mathematics and natural sciences brings new elements to education by teaching elements related to the way of thinking and working in engineering disciplines supports interdisciplinarity, because the computing tasks considered have their origin in various scientic disciplines and industrial applications supports teamwork.

How to Teach Informatics?

Focus on creating concepts and notions Focus on problem solving Try to avoid too many technicalities Do not focus on computer driving license

Center for Informatics Education

Ausbildungs- und Beratungszentrum fr Informatikunterricht

Goals of ABZ

1 2 3

Improving the image of informatics Teacher education and teacher training Creating textbooks and teaching materials, testing them in schools Building a network of teachers Support of the Informatics Olympiad and the ACM Programming Contest Research in informatics education

4 5

1. Improving the Image of Informatics

about 200 articles in newspapers and journals Open Class series of lectures and workshops for a broad audience (Seven Miracles of Informatics, Programming for everybody, Programming for children) Project weeks in schools

2. Teacher Training and School Projects

over 1400 lessons at high schools about 20 days of courses for teachers programming in primary schools (about 10 schools)

3. Textbooks

Textbooks

Teaching Materials about 1500 pages of further teaching sequences are freely available online www.abz.inf.ethz.ch

4. Networking

Building a network of teachers (currently 150 teachers) Website www.abz.inf.ethz.ch Mewsletter, 34 times per year Swiss day about teaching informatics (STIU) 2010 & 2011 with 120140 participants each Medals for contributions around the teaching of informatics

5. SOI & ACM Programming Contest

Schweizer Informatik Olympiade (SOI) ACM Programming Contest (since 2010)

Impressions