A Template for Teaching Computational Modelling in High School
Line Have Musaeus, Michael E. Caspersen, Peter Musaeus · 2023
Computing education is becoming increasingly important in high schools. Computational modelling is important in computing and many sciences, but there is a lack of research on how teachers should teach computational modelling in high schools. This study was a design-based research study with 86 teachers teaching 12 different subjects at 44 Danish high schools. The study aimed to develop a template to help design and classify didactical questions on computational modelling. Teachers participated in one of two courses on computational modelling. The intervention group (Prog+) included an introduction to agent-based modelling and programming in NetLogo. The comparison group (Prog-) included a general introduction to agent-based modelling. A template consisting of 16 modelling parameters was developed with teachers. Results showed that the template was helpful for teachers to design didactical questions and for the research team to classify the taxonomical levels of these questions. A total of 51 teaching activities were developed by teachers and didactical questions were derived. The strength of this design based research study was that it included a control group and inspired teachers to design and evaluate didactical questions in computational modelling in a wide range of high school subjects. Future studies are needed to evaluate the validity of the template.