The Determination of the Needs of STEM or ICT teacher candidates with regards to a new curriculum related with how to teach coding: Turkey, Slovenia, Ireland, and Croatia

European Commission states that “Coding is the literacy of today and it helps practice 21st century skills such as problem solving, team work and analytical thinking” (EU Digital Single Market, 2017). Therefore, coding... [ view full abstract ]

European Commission states that “Coding is the literacy of today and it helps practice 21^st century skills such as problem solving, team work and analytical thinking” (EU Digital Single Market, 2017). Therefore, coding education has a great value in the future of both education and ever emerging jobs which needs competent staff who know how to develop, update, or fix the problems. The project of “Increasing the Competency of Computer Science Teaching Undergraduates on Coding Education (EDUCODE)” aims to propose a new curriculum in which teacher candidates learn how to teach coding to children. This project is funded by the EU Erasmus+ Key Action 2 – The Strategic Partnership, and have partners from Turkey, Slovenia, Croatia and Ireland. This study aims to present the results of the first stage of this project “The needs analysis about STEM or ICT teacher candidates” ideas and their needs related on how to teach coding”. The needs analysis was achieved by using a survey method. The data collection tool “EDUCODE Need Analysis Questionnaire” was developed by the contribution of all partners after arranging a skype meeting and working in a google document. A total of 258 participants including 61 from Dokuz Eylul University, 36 from Limerick Institute of Technology, 35 from Maribor University, and 126 from Zagreb University provided data for the survey. The data were analyzed by descriptive data analysis techniques. The results of this study indicates that the curriculum for teaching coding to children should focus on the teaching of “the objectives of coding education”, “the skills and acquisitions of coding education” and “the teaching methods and techniques, materials and tools” to teacher candidates. These results suggest that there is a real need for curriculum development for teacher candidates on how to teach coding to children.

Bibliography:
EU Digital Single Market. (2017). Coding - the 21st century skill. Retreived from https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/coding-21st-century-skill