A teaching scheme using forerun computing-culture cases for computational-thinking oriented course

Abstract

Computational thinking (CT) ability has been described as a new training objective of basic computer courses in Chinese university. Currently, contents and methods of basic computer course teaching in college have been unable to meet the actual needs to develop CT ability. This paper firstly makes an analysis of possible reasons for the above challenge and then aimed to how to teach and what to teach in a practical way. Our research discussed the basic concept and research status of "computing culture" discussed and extracted above 60 typical cases based "computing culture". These cases focused on discovery joinery of prophetic computer scientists etc. As the main line of teaching, these cases run through in-class teaching and organize every teaching step, such as leading-in, explanation, discussion, dialogue, and conclusion and so on. The several years teaching practice prove the strategies for teaching design put forward in this study is effective to foster a student's sense of "computing" and to arouse the students' interest. The finding concludes that developing the broader value of computing-culture and continued investing in the refine of computing-culture based cases are valuable.