Abstract
A new computer science curriculum has been developed for the Victorian Certificate of Education. It gives students direct entry into second year University computer science. The curriculum focuses on data structures and algorithms, with an emphasis on the graph abstract data type and graph algorithms. We taught a pilot course during 2014 involving students from seven schools, and administered an algorithmic thinking quiz on entry and exit, and also tested a first year university reference group. In this paper we present the curriculum and report on the evaluation. We discuss the effectiveness of our approach and make recommendations for improving future versions of the course. Pedagogical issues are discussed in relation to the cognitive education literature on the teaching of algorithmic thinking.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | SIGCSE 2017 - Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education |
Place of Publication | New York |
Publisher | Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) |
Pages | 135-140 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Edition | 1 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781450346986 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 8 Mar 2017 |
Externally published | Yes |
Event | 48th ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2017 - Seattle, United States Duration: 8 Mar 2017 → 11 Mar 2017 |
Conference
Conference | 48th ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2017 |
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Country/Territory | United States |
City | Seattle |
Period | 8/03/17 → 11/03/17 |