Page 15 - Getting the Picture Modeling and Simulation in Secondary Computer Science Education

1.1 Computer Science Education 1
Since the emergence of computers in the 1950’s, learning about them is considered important: hence the introduction of computer science (CS) education in K-12 worldwide. In this introductory chapter, we portray the aims of teaching CS, illustrate these with examples of CS education in K-12 from several countries, and describe the exploding interest in teaching some aspect of CS to all students with the reintroduction of the notion of Computational Thinking (CT) in the 2000’s. We then zoom in on modeling and simulation, an aspect of CT that has barely been touched upon in the context of Computer Science Education Research (CSER) and describe how we look at teaching modeling and simulation in secondary CS education in the Netherlands through the lens of pedagogical aspects of teaching a particular subject that is derived from the notion of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK).
So, why do we teach computer science (CS)? The purpose to teach anything can be seen as threefold: (1) qualification — to provide students with knowledge and skills to enable them to do something, (2) socialization — to become part of existing culture and tradition, and (3) subjectification — to develop autonomous and individual thinking and acting (Biesta, 2015).
The rationales for teaching CS evolve together with CS itself. In the early days of computing in the 1950’s, when computers were scarce and difficult to use, the focus lay on training for technical jobs — thus providing qualification to students. With the increased development and availability of computers in the second half of the 20th century, the focus shifted to training for software development and use in academia. Nowadays, when computers in all possible shapes and forms permeate every pore of our professional, social and private life, the socialization and subjectification purpose of learning CS are gaining significance. The motives to teach CS refer not only to preparing students for the labor market, but also to promoting computational thinking (i.e. “computer scientists’ ways of thinking, heuristics and problem-solving strategies”) and computational literacy (i.e. “a set of material, cognitive, and social elements that generate new ways of thinking and learning”), supporting equity of participation (Blikstein & Moghadam, 2019; Vogel et al., 2017), as well as bringing up broader issues of citizenship and civic life; scientific, technological and social innovations, school improvement and reform, and finally, fun, fulfillment and personal agency (Vogel et al., 2017).
Introduction
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