Improving Teaching Standards in Computer Science Basics for Non-IT First-Year Students
摘要
Today, computer technologies are becoming more accessible to everyone. Even at a young age, people are confronted with information technologies (IT) in their daily lives. Therefore, computer science is becoming increasingly important, and its study is becoming more and more necessary. At Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), the Study Centre for IT Foundations focuses on teaching IT fundamentals to first-year non-IT students from Estonia and abroad. Current computer science teaching standards focus on developing the fundamental computational thinking and knowledge necessary for success in the digital age. At the same time, there are several private initiatives, such as IT bootcamps, online courses, hackathons, and programming competitions, as well as various technical communities where people can expand their IT skills. However, such standards are not adapted in all countries and are often adapted to the level of IT knowledge and needs of the country. In addition, private initiatives often focus only on the practical part without providing the details of the academic foundation. In TalTech students join the IT Foundations course from all over the world that complicates the usage of some specific teaching standard in computer science education. In this paper, authors provide flexible student-oriented approach based on the analysis of first-year non-IT students’ entry knowledge level calculated with preliminary quizzes for constant improvement of the TalTech teaching standard in computer science field. This approach enables agile changes in course while following the latest needs and standards in the IT industry.