The Second Decade of Informatics in Dutch Secondary Education

Abstract

In 1998, informatics was introduced as an elective subject for all students in the upper grades of senior general secondary education and preuniversity education in the Netherlands. Rather than focusing on digital literacy or the use of office applications, it focuses on informatics as a scientific discipline. In its first decade, it faced growing pains while fighting for recognition and necessary facilities from the stakeholders: students, parents, school administrators, politicians and the general public. In 2007, the curriculum was slightly streamlined but not updated. In its second decade, informatics reached adulthood with established teacher training programs and a new curriculum which is to be introduced in 2019. In this paper we describe the events and processes that led to the renewal of the curriculum, the curriculum itself with the principles it is based on and its aims, the current process of teaching material development, the related research, the teacher training, curriculum reform in primary and lower secondary education, and the current situation of informatics as an upper secondary school subject, together with the challenges it still faces.

Teaching algorithms in upper secondary education: a study of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge

“…Their teaching experience varied from 1-5 years to 16-20 years, with most having 6-10 years of experience. Teacher education varies substantially among Dutch CS teachers (Grgurina et al, 2018). Among our participants, two teachers followed an in-service teacher training program for two years, known as the CODI program.…”