On the achievements of high school students studying computational models

Solving problems by reduction is an important issue in mathematics and science education in general (both in high school and in college or university) and particularly in computer science education. Developing reductive thinking patterns is an important goal in any scientific discipline, yet reduction is not an easy subject to cope with. Still, the use of reduction usually is insufficiently reflected in high school mathematics and science programs. Even in academic computer science programs the concept of reduction is mentioned explicitly only in advanced academic courses such as computability and complexity theory. However, reduction can be applied in other courses as well, even on the high school level. Specifically, in the field of computational models, reduction is an important method for solving design and proof problems. This study focuses on high school students studying the unit "computational models"-a unique unit, which is part of the new Israeli computer science high school curriculum. We examined whether high school students tend to solve problems dealing with computational models reductively, and if they do, what is the nature of their reductive solutions. To the best of our knowledge, the tendency to reductive thinking in theoretical computer science has not been studied before. Our findings show that even though many students use reduction, many others prefer non-reductive solutions, even when reduction can significantly decrease the technical complexity of the solution. We discuss these findings and suggest possible ways to improve reductive thinking.

show abstract

“…The topics in the CM unit are presented in a way that is suitable for high school students (Armoni & Gal-Ezer, 2003, 2004.…”

Section: Reduction In the Computational Models Unitmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This study is a part of a wider research we conducted on students' learning process when studying the CM unit. The research examined two additional issues: 1) The students' perception of non-determinism (Armoni & Gal-Ezer, 2003); 2) The general achievements of high school students studying the unit (Armoni & Gal-Ezer, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solving Problems Reductively

Armoni

Gal‐Ezer

Tirosh

2005

Journal of Educational Computing Research

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the last two grades of basic school (9th and 10th) students are taught to summarize ICT knowledge that was obtained in school and out of it, improve their ICT skills, and are prompted to get deeper awareness of Informatics as a science which might encourage them for further studies of the subject. The aims of general course of IT for the 11 th and 12 th grades are cognitive as well, while the advanced course is intended for the training of specific application skills in one of the three chosen areas of ICT (data base, programming or multimedia) [4]. The targets for general skills are divided into four groups:…”

Section: Dm: 3-educational Relevant Areas\intentions\competenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computer science/informatics in secondary education

Hubwieser¹,

Armoni

Brinda

et al. 2011

Proceedings of the 16th Annual Conference Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education - Working Group Re

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Computer Science (CS) Education research, specifically when focusing on secondary education, faces the difficulty of regionally differing political, legal, or curricular constraints. To date, many different studies exist that document the specific regional situations of teaching CS in secondary schools. This ITiCSE working group report documents the process of collecting, evaluating, and integrating research findings about CS in secondary schools from different countries. As an outcome, it presents a category system (Darmstadt Model), as a first step towards a framework that supports future research activities in this field and that supports the transfer of results between researchers and teachers in CS education (CSE) across regional or national boundaries. Exemplary application of the Darmstadt model shows in several important categories how different the situation of CSE in secondary education in various countries can be. The Darmstadt Model (DM) is now ready for discussion and suggestions for improvement by the CSE-community.

show abstract

“…In previous works [1,2,3,4], we described some aspects of a wide study we conducted on the teaching and learning process of the unit Computational Models, a unique unit which is part of the high school computer science curriculum in our country. Three of these works focused on two issues, both strongly related to abstraction:…”

Section: Introduction 11 Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduction -- an abstract thinking pattern

Armoni

Gal‐Ezer

2006

Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstraction has been the focus of many researches in mathematics education and to some extent in computer science education. Abstract thinking characterizes the theoretical foundations of computer science, where reduction is one important abstract thinking pattern. In a previous work, we discussed the issue of reductive thinking among high school students in relation to computational models -a theoretical unit. This unit requires abstract thinking in many aspects. Our findings in relation to reductive thinking showed that many students preferred direct, non-reductive solutions, even if reductive solutions could have significantly decreased the design complexity of the solution. This study motivated the current study where we examine the issue of reductive thinking among university students. The findings of this preliminary study are demonstrated by students' solutions to questions in assignments given in the computational models course. We found that even among university students in a very prestigious academic institution with very high entrance requirements abstraction is a real obstacle as reduction is not easily understood and used. This encourages us to further investigate this phenomenon.

show abstract

On the achievements of high school students studying computational models

Cited by 6 publications

References 15 publications

Solving Problems Reductively

Solving Problems Reductively

Computer science/informatics in secondary education

Reduction -- an abstract thinking pattern

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About