Workshop goal

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Aim and Description

According to many experts, notably the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, secondary education on informatics and digital literacy urgently needs thorough improvement. The workshop intends to develop a contemporary design for the discipline, following and learning from similar efforts in other countries.

During the workshop we will explore curriculum content and pedagogical approaches, addressing both digital literacy (e.g., computational thinking) and more advanced topics (e.g., programming, cognitive computing, data science).

The workshop will consist of plenary sessions and working groups during the week, with the ultimate aim to arrive at concrete recommendations that could guide the further development of the subjects in Dutch secondary education, as well as plans for scientific research supporting this development.

Invited Speakers

  • Valentina Dagienė (Vilnius university, Lithuania)
  • Gilles Dowek (Inria, France)
  • Judith Gal-Ezer (The Open University of Israel, Israel)
  • Ajit Jaokar (Feynlabs London, UK)
  • Bern Martens (KH Leuven/KU Leuven, Belgium)
  • Simon Peyton Jones (Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK)
  • Ralf Romeike (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany)
  • Chris Stephenson (Google Mountain View, USA)
  • Jan Vahrenhold (WWU Münster, Germany)

Workshop themes

The following themes have been identified so far:

Definition

What does the ideal curriculum look like, both for 'digital literacy' in the lower part and for `informatics/CS' in the upper part of secondary education? Or at least, what are the necessary ingredients?

Sustainability

How can we make the curriculum sustainable in a rapidly developing field? What is a suitable description format to support this?

Concepts and contexts

How does CS/literacy fit in the context-based teaching approach adopted widely for the other science subjects (e.g. in the Netherlands). What are the 'concepts' and what are suitable 'contexts' for informatics? How can they be assessed?

Diversity

(especially for the computer science subject:)

How can the curriculum cater for

  • differences in students’ backgrounds and prior knowledge and skills (for example with respect to programming),
  • differences in student interests (for example, science and humanities, respectively),
  • different levels in secondary education (especially pre-university education and pre-vocational education, respectively)

Integration

(especially for digital literacy:)

How can we link this to the other subjects in secondary education?

Teacher training

Even the best curriculum cannot be established if there are no teachers. How can this be tackled, along with the curriculum development?