Computer Science: Educators’ Guide MOOC

Single offer

We all know computer science is a hot topic these days: and if a parent wants to encourage a child to take up computational thinking from an early age, they have tons of resources at hand already. But how can educators go about this in the classroom? And what if teachers themselves are not that confident in their own abilities or knowledge?

This MOOC, created by European Schoolnet with the cooperation of Google is designed specifically for educators and teachers, and aims to inspire them to explore the subject further in the classroom, and make knowledge of future career options in tech available to students. The MOOC is meant to help trainers and teachers understand best practices on integrating computer science within the normal classroom. Participating teachers will also find out how to stimulate the development of critical thinking skills, creative thinking, and the ability to problem-solve in students - and ultimately, to encourage computational thinking from an early age.

Why this MOOC?

Participants will get an overview of educational activities for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, visual and text-based programming. They will be introduced to specific learning resources they can use to teach computer science in the classroom - like Google for Education, Code Week, or Code.org. In the end of the MOOC, participating teachers and educators need to create a sample of a learning scenario to use in their classroom - and receive feedback from peers.

At the end of the MOOC, participants get a certificate, provided 95% of the course's assessments have been completed. Teachers and educators can communicate with one another through a dedicated Facebook group, and share thoughts on Twitter using the hashtag #CSMOOC.

What will I achieve with this MOOC?

With this MOOC, you will:

Get to know the basic concepts and terms that underpin Computer Science and find out how computational thinking can be stimulated via classroom or home-based learning;
Facilitate your approach towards integrating digital technologies in teaching and learning;
Dive into various innovative learning approaches in computer science and computational thinking.
Explore Google and a variety of other resources that can help you teach and learn more about this subject;
Test different methods and tools to integrate coding and CT into teaching and learning activities with young people;
Spread the word and raise awareness on the impact of CS and CT in young people’s career prospects.
Reflect on the relevance of integrating CS and CT in the classroom or/and educative activities at home.

How can I take part?

The course is free and structured in 4 phases and takes approximately 15 hours in total to complete. It is open to anyone interested in integrating Computer Science (CS) and Computational Thinking (CT) into their classroom, regardless of their background on the topic or skill level. However, the course is targeted mainly to teachers of any school subject in primary or secondary schools.

Many of the course materials and resources are available in several European languages, but the course content and the course assignments are entirely in English, so a basic level of understanding and writing is required.

The final deadline to complete all activities is 01 June 2022, 23:59 CEST.

Find out more on the website of European Schoolnet Academy here.