Page 85 - Getting the Picture Modeling and Simulation in Secondary Computer Science Education

Investigating CS Teachers’ Initial PCK on Modeling and Simulation
teachers for other subjects — such as physics or history — who additionally attained teacher qualification for CS through in-service training CODI scheme, described in chapter 2. The teaching experience of these ten teachers ranges from a few months to several decades. Eight of these teachers were about to take a course on agent-based modeling. Interviews lasted between half an hour and an hour, depending on the extent of a particular teacher’s PCK. In our interview protocol, we first enquired about the teachers’ educational and professional background and whether they had already taught modeling. We then asked detailed question arranged around the four PCK components described by Magnusson, that were inspired by Justi and Gilbert (2002, 2003), Rahimi (2016) and Henze et al. (2007).
• M1: Knowledge of goals and objectives
What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘model’? In which context(s)
does this word make sense to you? (Justi & Gilbert, 2003) What are models for? 4 In which circumstances are they used? (Justi & Gilbert, 2003) What do you expect
to be your main objective in teaching modeling and simulation in CS? (Henze et
al., 2007) Why do you intend to teach this to your students in CS? What do expect
you will like or dislike about modeling projects by your students? (Rahimi et al.,
2016)
• M2: Knowledge of students’ understanding
Do your students need any specific prerequisite knowledge to be able to learn about modeling and simulation in CS? (Henze et al., 2007) What sorts of skills do students need to acquire in order to be able to develop models and run simulations? (Rahimi et al., 2016) What do you expect to be successful for your students? (Henze et al., 2007; Rahimi et al., 2016) What do you expect to be difficulties for your students? (Henze et al., 2007; Rahimi et al., 2016) What do expect your students to actually learn from their modeling (and simulation) projects? (Rahimi et al., 2016)
• M3: Knowledge of instructional strategies
In what activities and in what sequence do you expect your students to participate in the activities of learning modeling and simulation? What to teach students to achieve the modeling objectives? (Rahimi et al., 2016) How to teach students to achieve the modeling objectives? (Rahimi et al., 2016) What do you expect to be your role as a teacher when teaching about modeling and simulation? (Henze et al., 2007) What do you expect are going to be the teaching difficulties/ problems concerned with the modeling projects in your classroom? (Rahimi et al., 2016) What technological tools do you intend to use in your classroom? (Rahimi et al., 2016)
83