Maarten van Veen
ABSTRACT
In this paper we elaborate on the work done by IFIP Working Group 3.2 in 1997 and 2002 on various curriculum schemes for computing/informatics. It is the aim of this paper to contribute to this work by bringing in concepts and insights from curriculum research and curriculum theory. This offers an additional view on the curriculum schemes besides the more disciplinary content driven approach that mostly dominates the curriculum work. We analyze three curriculum schemes: Computing Curricula 2001 (CC2001), Informatics Curriculum Framework 2000 (ICF-2000) and Career Space (CSP) with two confronting exercises. The first exercise introduces the concepts of planned, enacted, experienced, and hidden curriculum and applies these to the process of development and implementation of curriculum schemes in general. The second exercise positions the three curriculum schemes in a generic set of curriculum components that is being used frequently in, for example, secondary education as well as in other disciplines. It appears that quite a few components are not included. The paper concludes with some suggestions for improving the development process of curriculum schemes.
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Index Terms
- What is lacking in curriculum schemes for computing/informatics?
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Reviews
Gopal K. Gupta
This paper describes work done over several years, by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group on University Education (WG 3.2), on analyzing computing curricula based on educational concepts and insights from curriculum research and curriculum theory. Three curricula have been analyzed: The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)/Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Computing Curricula 2001 (CC2001); the IFIP/United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Informatics Curriculum Framework 2000 (ICF2000), developed by WG3.2; and the Career Space (CSP) Curriculum Development Guidelines developed in 2001 by the CSP consortium of 11 major European information communication technology (ICT) companies. The authors appear to be concerned about the apparent diversity of computing offerings in universities, from generalized to more specialized, and from theoretical to more applied. They look for commonality and coherence in this diversity of offerings, in an attempt to find a shared identity for the computing field, and are surprised that the designers of CC2001 and ICF2000 had different approaches, in terms of their view of the field, goals, and the curriculum core and structure. The WG 3.2 meeting in Brazil in 2002 concluded that it was imperative to develop means to compare different curriculum recommendations against some established standards. The authors propose to accomplish this by categorizing curricula into four types (planned, enacted, experienced, and hidden), and by presenting nine elements of curricula components. It is not clear why such computing curriculum comparisons are desirable, and why different approaches to designing computing curricula in terms of their view of the field, goals, and the curriculum core and structure should not be welcome. Given the differences in the US and European educational systems, and the different approaches of the three curricula, it is not surprising that they are quite different. The authors conclude by noting that the most important aspect of curriculum design is to improve the quality of learning. It is, however, not clear just how the proposed comparisons help curriculum designers do that. Online Computing Reviews Service
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