Page 167 - Getting the Picture Modeling and Simulation in Secondary Computer Science Education

— are executable and in the spirit of yet another science paradigm shift: the attention is moving from the theoretical approach to the computational approach which focuses on the simulation of complex phenomena through the use of computational models that are executable — rather than on modeling them only. That means that nowadays even novices — such as secondary students — have tools at their disposal to actively engage in scientific practices. Indeed, Weintrop et al. (2016) observe that science is increasingly becoming a computational endeavor and they consider modeling and simulation practices to be one of the main categories of computational thinking for mathematics and science. Our project provides evidence that it is possible to teach modeling and simulation effectively within a secondary CS course and to empower students to embark on a journey of doing science themselves.
In chapter 2, we described the history and situation of secondary CS education
in the Netherlands. It is in this light that we see the principal practical contribution
of this research project: it informs the teaching of Computational Science. Our
results contributed to the design of professional development activities for in-
service and pre-service teachers, covering both the aspects of modeling and
simulation, as well as the pedagogy suitable to teach it successfully. Furthermore,
as a spin-off of this project, we used our findings to guide the development of
teaching materials and accompanying teachers’ manual which are now a part of
CS textbooks28 available to all secondary students in the Netherlands. This way, we
address a number of critical factors listed in the report about the state of secondary
CS education in the Netherlands (Tolboom et al., 2014) (see section 2.3.2.2): we
created modular teaching material in order to provide for rapid advances of the
discipline, we contribute to the in-service training of the teachers, and with our 7 assessment instrument, we contribute to the quality of assessment in schools.
In a broader perspective, our findings could influence teaching of other CS content. They could alert teachers about understanding and difficulties they could expect from their students, and inspire the development of a holistic assessment instrument like ours.
When we embarked on this project, we focused on modeling and simulation within CS education. We hoped it would contribute to building bridges to other school courses and compel our students and their teachers to reach out from the confines of their disciplines. We hoped to effectuate interdisciplinary cooperation which would benefit students’ learning of all the disciplines involved. We are glad
28 https://ieni.github.io/inf2019/themas/r-computational-science
General Conclusions and Discussion
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