Integrating Computer Science and ICT Concepts in a Cohesive Curriculum for Middle School - An Experience Report

ABSTRACTThe paper elaborates on the experience gained during the first year of an intervention in the Middle Schools to implement a 3 year curriculum. The growing importance of computing knowledge in most professional fields has led many countries and stakeholders around the world to introduce Computer Science (CS) education in K-12 curriculum. These curricula replace the existing Information Communications Technology (ICT) curriculum by adding a new dedicated CS curriculum, adding topics of CS (predominantly "programming") to the ICT curriculum, or providing CS as an additional elective course. This paper aims to describe a new comprehensive curriculum that integrates topics of ICT with CS in a rich context to create need-based learning for the students (year 1 of the 3-year curriculum). The proposed curriculum has been designed to seamlessly replace existing ICT curriculum giving students added proficiency in CS along with ICT. This experience report provides the pedagogy behind the inclusion of ICT and CS topics, the detail of the curriculum, teacher training, and data collection methodology for impact evaluation. This paper goes into the detail of the 1st year of the curriculum and briefly explains the curriculum for the 2nd and 3rd year of Middle School grades.