Teacher Training

TrainingComputer science in secondary schools is an area of increasing interest and concern to educators as well as to computer science professionals. Professionals agree about the need for computer science courses for the secondary school curriculum. The second recommendation is for the requirements for teacher certification in computer science. In 1983 the ACM Education Board initiated efforts to formulate recommendations for secondary school computer science. Two task forces, one for curriculum recommendations and the other for teacher certification recommendations, were established under the Education Board's Elementary and Secondary Schools Subcommittee. The work of the two task forces was also supported by the IEEE Computer Society Educational Activities Board, and the final reports from the task forces were jointly approved by the ACM and IEEE-CS boards in July 1984. Reports generated from these groups are significant not only for the important issues that they address, but also because they represent a joint activity between ACM and the IEEE Computer Society. The work of the two task forces is summarized in reports available as the publication Computer Science in Secondary Schools