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January 18, Tuesday
12:00 – 14:00

Current Research in Computer Science Education – What Can We Learn from It about Teaching Computer Science?
Computer Science seminar
Lecturer : Dr. Michal Armoni
Affiliation : Dep. of Education in Technology and Science, Technion
Location : -101/58
Host : Dr. Kobbi Nisim
Computer science education is a sub-field of mathematics and science education, which in turn is a sub-field of the discipline of education. Thus, the research of computer science education is based on methodologies of social science, as well as on understanding the special nature of computer science – as a discipline that has something in common with mathematics, science and engineering, but also has unique characteristics of its own. The research of computer science education focuses on two educational processes:

The teaching process: What should we teach our students in order to better prepare them to be computer science graduates, and how should we teach it? The learning process: How do our students interpret and perceive what we teach them?

In this talk I will give a short survey of the current research in computer science education, and its possible effects on teaching computer science in universities. In particular, I intend to relate to two aspects of my recent work: Teaching reductive thinking (joint work with Judith Gal-Ezer) and teaching backward reasoning (joint work with David Ginat)

Michal Armoni completed her B.A. and M.Sc. in computer science in the Technion in 1989 and 1991, respectively. In 2003 Michal submitted her Ph.D. thesis, on teaching computational models to high school students. The doctoral research was done in the School of Education in Tel-Aviv University. For the last 10 years she is a member of the computer science department in the Open University of Israel, where she chaired a team developing teaching materials in computational models for high school students, and is now the coordinator of two academic courses in algorithms. For the last four years she teaches in the School of Education in Tel-Aviv University, in the computer science teaching certificate track. She has a rich experience of teaching computer science in college, university and high school. As of January 2005 she is a postdoctorant in the department of Education in Technology and Science in the Technion.