This work-in-progress paper presents the development of a Concept Inventory (CI) specifically designed for Computer Science (CS) teacher training programs which are based on a wide experience in teacher-training. CS Teachers often do not have a formal background in CS therefore the objective of this paper is to identify and effectively address the misconceptions prevalent in the field of CS education. This is achieved by the following three steps: 1. Definition of key CS concepts, 2. Developing of multiple-choice questions that incorporate distractors based on widespread misconceptions, and 3. A comprehensive validation process which additionally ensures the effectiveness and reliability of these questions. The resulting CI focuses on the idea of conceptual reconstruction, aiming to enhance teachers' understanding of fundamental CS principles. The development process is iterative, grounded in educational theory and practice. The approach to developing this inventory illustrated in this work-in-progress paper includes a detailed approach to the creation of assessment questions, leveraging existing literature and expert insights. The paper also discusses the future plans for the expansion and adaptation of the CI, emphasising its role in elevating the quality of CS instruction. This work aims to significantly enhance CS teacher education by improving conceptual clarity and understanding in the field.

Embedding curriculum content in relevant contexts is a challenge computer science teachers face. The idea of smart environments as networking embedded computers to complete everyday tasks provides strong possibilities for context orientation, including smart homes, smart cities, and Industry 4.0. In particular, the context smart home offers teachers exciting and versatile possibilities to introduce students to computer science. It enables teaching programming, networks, communication protocols, and electrical engineering in a student-oriented manner. In order to provide teachers with a low-barrier opportunity to use this context in computer science classes, we developed a smart-environments learning kit. The kit contains hardware that can be easily interconnected and recombined, leaving plenty of room for individual development and internal differentiation. First pilot uses of the kit in different learning groups revealed room for improvement: For instance, preparing the boards in computer science classes is too time-consuming, and the open-source firmware of the hardware modules is too complex to be covered in class. Following a design-based research approach, this work-in-progress paper documents lessons learned from the piloting implementations and illustrates potential solutions.

Research into students’ conceptions is inherently challenged with appropriately transferring profound research questions into suitable research instruments. This applies in particular, but not exclusively, to studies with primary school students. In order to investigate individuals’ conceptions, besides linear-linguistic questionnaire procedures, classically guided interviews are used, also triangulated with each other or further sub-instruments (e.g. concept mapping techniques). For this latter purpose, seek-and-find-drawings offer a good opportunity, both paper based and digital. This paper presents research on primary school students’ conceptions of computers in everyday objects and illustrates a methodical opportunity regarding the use of seek-and-find-drawings in Computer Science Education research. In the presented study, 60 primary school children were presented with a seek-and-find-drawing depicting several everyday encounter situations with computing systems. According to the results, primary school students understand not only personal computers, smartphones, tablets, video gaming consoles and (video) cameras, but in few cases also refrigerators, air conditioners and cars as systems containing (embedded) computers. The experience from the presented paper based hidden objects study can be used especially for future research projects.

In the two-semester course "Soft Skills and Technical Competence" at the University of Oldenburg, we support first-year computer science students in testing and applying the theoretical content from their first computer science lectures in a meaningful and practical context. The interdisciplinary lecture content is selected to be directly applied in the further course of studies and prepares the students for their first scientific work. Therefore, the course content includes creative methods for problem-solving and brainstorming, working in groups and projects, scientific writing and presenting with the help of slides and posters, and formulating (peer) feedback. In addition, we teach practical skills such as using (measuring) tools, reading and creating circuit diagrams and circuits, programming microcontrollers, 3D modeling, and soldering electrical components in order to accompany students holistically in the development cycle of their digital artifacts: namely from the first idea in their heads to the solution of an everyday problem to the finished prototype in their hands. The examination is a digital portfolio consisting of an individual web blog for assignments and a learning diary, a smart home group project, a group blog for the project documentation, and a final presentation. In this poster, we describe the structure and content of the course and give an overview of some improvements for the coming semesters.

It is a well known fact, that computer science (CS) is one of the most stereotyped and clichéd (STEM-)disciplines. Computer scientists are generally perceived as being male, physically unappealing, boring, uptight loners working with machines instead of people all day long. Obviously, these often unjustified stereotypes are not compatible with many high school graduates’ – especially girls’ and (young) women’s – self-concepts. Presumably, this incongruity is co-responsible for the low number of CS students in western cultures. In order to counteract these biases and clichés to broaden participation in CS study programs, these stereotypes need to be documented first. While this is already the case for CS and computer scientists in general, analogous investigations that focus on CS education (CSE) and CS teacher students in particular are still missing in scientific literature. Since western countries share a huge demand on qualified CS teachers, equivalent investigations can generate useful derivations for CSE study program planners as well. Therefore, this paper presents an online based repertory grid survey on the stereotyping of teacher students of various study subjects like CS, Physical Education, History, or Politics among others. Results show, that of all teacher candidates, CSE students were by far most likely to be rated unappealing and male. Attributed characteristics mostly were negatively connotated. At one of the survey’s questions focussing on who the participant would most likely ”like” (swipe right) and ”dislike” (swipe left) on the popular casual-dating-app TinderTM, the prototypical CSE student was ”disliked” by almost every second participant.

The generic term smart home describes among other things the increase of quality of life, security and reduction of energy consumption in our homes and workplaces through automated processes. These processes enable educators to work up realistic and tangible aspects of computing science using everyday examples. Programming, networks, communication protocols, web design and development, electrical engineering, data science, CAD and even project management can be combined with smart home in terms of content. For this reason, we have used open source tools to develop a cost-effective infrastructure that combines the above-mentioned aspects in a single kit. This kit is based on various in-house developed sensors and actuators based on the ESP8266, a Raspberry Pi as the central unit and Node-RED as the framework for linking the hardware. This hardware can be connected without writing code or previous knowledge, enables a quick experience of success while offering much potential for internal differentiation in teaching.

Nowadays, the ability to code is becoming increasingly important in industry and is often mentioned as a crucial skill for future employment. In maker culture, the ability to program along with other technical skills often exceeds this limitation and also includes fun activities through personally fabricated projects. In this paper, we examine computational design projects that are intended to be 3D printed and could potentially introduce coding learning actions. To find computationally rich designs that are appealing to learners, we conducted data analysis on an online makerspace which exploits computational design tools for personal fabrication. We found the most liked designs of the online makerspace and examined which of them included programming features (iterations, conditional statements and functions/modules) and could foster computational thinking elements such as abstract and algorithmic thinking, pattern recognition, and decomposition. The most liked category of designs was Figures (of animals and popular animation characters among other things) which surprisingly often also included programming features. We discuss the implications of our research for technologists, academics and teachers who wish to include 3D modeling and printing in coding learning activities.

The introduction of programming in K-12 can also include elements of other STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) subjects like engineering design and mathematics. Parametric Design is a design paradigm which is often related to architecture. Emerging technologies like additive manufacturing (3D printing) and modern CAD (Computer Aided Design) tools have enabled manufacturing of complex parametric designs not only by professionals but hobbyists and youth as well. In this paper we present our empirical investigation on how parametric design and digital fabrication tools can support programming learning actions. To investigate the potential of parametric design in programming learning activities, we analyzed the code of parametric design projects from a popular online makerspace and workshops that took place in two digital fabrication labs and an informatics school lab. In total 45 students participated in our workshops and developed code to generate 3D models, while each participant had the opportunity to 3D print at least one artifact. We designed, implemented and evaluated the workshops using mixed qualitative methods to triangulate the data. The results showed that the parametric design tools that we used were well suited for participants to understand core principles of programming (like loops, conditions, variables, functions) and engineering design, bringing unique advantages to understanding programming concepts through the visualization of the generated 3D models. Moreover, the participants seem to have understood how to use programming concepts like decomposition and indentation to designate logical blocks in the parametric design code. However, in some cases more advanced concepts were understood only on a surface level with the participants using commands without a deep understanding of them. Therefore, we present some critical remarks on parametric design and digital fabrication in educational context and their integration with programming, engineering design and mathematics.

A basic principle of Computer Science is to break problems down into parts. Object Orientation, the paradigm Divide and Conquer, and Modularity are only three examples that make use of Part-Whole-Thinking, which is a fundamental skill enabling Life Long Learning. It includes the ability to cognitively (and often subconsciously) identify Part-Whole-Relationships, which help us to understand objects, systems, processes, definitions, and concepts. As part of a two-year Girls' Engineering course held at a Northern-German secondary school it was tried to improve students' overall understanding of Information Technology by including Part-Whole-Thinking into its course content. The way this was done was through the use of littleBits for rapid prototyping of various Internet-of-Things devices. In this short paper, this practical approach is presented and the advantages in explicitly making Part-Whole-Thinking a central topic in class are discussed.

In Software Engineering education didactical foundation is still at its beginnings. In recent years, this topic is put into stronger focus, as Software Engineering becomes more and more important in our everyday life. However, it is hard to teach and learn, because of diverse factors, e.g. the immateriality of the product. Therefore it is significant to improve the learning process on the one hand and to minimise obstacles to learning on the other hand. Other disciplines - with a long historical background in their “Fachdidaktik”1(e.g., biology or chemistry) - have already dealt with one sort of learning barriers; so-called misconceptions. The hurdle that misconceptions create can and will be explained by the constructivist learning theory. This paper covers a research approach to identify, analyse, filter and cluster misconceptions in Software Engineering.

Language - spoken and written - is the medium for information and knowledge sharing; and it is almost always even a role of every subject in (higher) education. The language therefore plays an important part in teaching and learning. This is further underlined by the fact that "discipline-specific language" - which is "the uses of language in university discipline learning and teaching and in professional life in a particular discipline" [1, p. 1] - can be understood as a link between knowledge and generic/personal/interpersonal competencies; especially communication skills. In this paper a research proposal is outlined to enable an enhanced and conscious approach to the use of language and special terms in Software Engineering in higher education. This is done by a two-piece approach that considers terminology from a linguistic and a didactical point of view. All of this combined is intended to contribute toward the development of a terminology in Software Engineering and, in a wider context, to reach the top goal of this research agenda: To be able to obtain recommendations for action for teaching and learning methods to improve the quality and sustainability of teaching and learning in this discipline.

Spoken and written language are key factors for communication, especially for teaching and learning in general and for all subjects. In K-12 schools, 'being fluent with information technology', 'CS fluency and competency', 'computer literacy' and 'computational literacy' are terms for learning objectives of ICT, computer science courses that refer to skills in CS as well as to reading and speaking. But in most cases, the term 'language' in the context of CS refers to programming languages or formal languages. This paper is neither on programming languages nor on students' knowledge or (their wrong) usage of certain terms. We would like to raise awareness for the problem area of spoken language and proper terminology for teaching and learning CS. As a first step, we provide definitions of terms and aspects of theory related to this problem domain to start a meta-discourse on spoken language for teaching CS. We present some observations from different perspectives as examples for the need of further research. We then derive a list of research questions to open the research area of 'CS classroom language', structuring it from different perspectives.

The most fundamental concepts of CS involve modeling: represent some aspect of the world in a suitable model, manipulate the model to reason about the world, transform the model instance to reflect events in the world, and interpret the model to determine its meaning. An authentic object-oriented model derives meaning from associations, not only attributes. Unfortunately, authentic object-oriented modeling is not employed early, if employed at all, perhaps because of limited language support for associations. The proposed curriculum and tool bring authentic object-oriented modeling and implementation to the front of the curriculum, often the first experience. By completion of the curricular unit, the student will have developed sophisticated applications with graphical user interfaces, and will come to value, be motivated toward, and have a context in which to place, subsequent object-oriented topics in a curriculum.