Abstract:
This paper describes and enacts a process for
bootstrapping a more systematic discussion of computing
education within a school of computing at a research intensive
Australasian university. Thus far, the project
has gone through three stages. In the first stage, some
academics were interviewed about their approach to
teaching. In the second stage, selected anonymous quotes
from the interviews were presented and discussed by
other interested members of the school at workshops. In
the final stage, selected anonymous quotes from the
interviews and workshops were placed on a web-based
survey, to which interested members of the school
responded. These forms of data will be used to drive
further stages of debate within the school. The theoretical
underpinnings of this project are Wenger's concept of a
community of practice, phenomenography, and socially
constructivism. The aim is not to instruct the academics
in any "right way" to teach. Instead, the aim is to
facilitate debate, where the teachers identify the
problems, and in finding the solutions they construct their
own "pedagogic reality". As facilitators of this process,
the authors of this paper highlighted dialectically
opposed views in quotes from the teachers, and then
allow the teachers to synthesise those views into a more
sophisticated view. Our ultimate project aim is to grow a
teaching community that balances reified theories of
teaching and learning with participation in a community
of practice.
