Teaching Methods in Computer Science Education

Abstract

This chapter presents active-learning-based teaching methods that computer science educators can employ in the classroom. The purpose of this chapter is first, to let the students in the MTCS course experience a variety of teaching methods before becoming computer science teachers; second, to discuss, together with the students, the advantages and disadvantages of these teaching methods; and third, to demonstrate high school teaching situations in which it is appropriate to employ these teaching methods. This chapter discusses (a) pedagogical tools: games, the CS-Unplugged approach, rich tasks, concept maps, classification, and metaphors; (b) different forms of class organization; and (c) mentoring software project development.