From context to competencies

Abstract

For classes in informatics1 it gets more and more important to develop a sustainable curriculum because computer technology and its related items are subject to frequent changes. This leads to the problem that the content of informatics courses suffers from fast decay time. And to make things worse: What we are teaching our pupils and students is far from sustainable knowledge. The scientific community has reacted on that by developing concepts like “key skills” and “competencies”. But what does this mean for a teacher or lecturer? How can those skills be acquired by courses? In which way has the course to be constructed to meet these means? This paper discusses the relationship between educational standards in informatics and the development of teaching units to meet them. The concept of “context” will be introduced and used to show a way to plan courses by a context related approach on the one hand and to give an idea on how to find a different way to develop educational standards, how to improve and how to evaluate them on the other hand.