Curriculum Design and Development for Computer Science and Similar Disciplines

2. Science, Knowledge, Skills, Curriculum: Definitions And Classifications

The main terms used in this study are general and have a variety of meanings which depend on the human activity that they may be used for. It is, therefore, necessary to define the specific meaning of these terms for the work presented here. Complete description of each term can be found in The New Penguin English Dictionary (2001).

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  Science – 1) The study, description, experimental investigation and theoretical explanation of the nature and behaviour of phenomena in the physical and natural world; 2) Branch of systematized knowledge of study.

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  Knowledge – 1) Information, understanding acquired through learning or experience; 2) The total body of known facts or those associated with a particular subject; 3) Justified or verifiable belief, as distinct from opinion (Phil).

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  Skills – Special abilities in particular field acquired by learning or practice.

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  Curriculum – the courses offered by an educational institution or followed by an individual or group; Latin – running, course, course of study, programme

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  Computer Science – study of the construction, operation, and use of computers

A more holistic approach to the word curriculum assumes that it should be placed between the aim of education and the learning outcome, where the aim is “what we want to achieve” and the learning outcome is “what we are able to measure”. A major question raised here about the learning outcome, as this term assumes to express in one sentence the result of education, is whether we can actually do this!? This term will not be used here and its applicability is out of the scope of this work.

Curriculum design was analysed by Aristotle: “For the formal nature is of greater importance than the material nature” (Jeans, 1930) and Confucius: “He who learns but does not think is lost; He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger”, clearly identifying the necessity of reflecting on what one has learned.

The idea of this work is to build an algorithm of Curriculum design and development for Computer Science disciplines using our own recent theoretical results and experience during the re-development of an existing module within the Faculty of Computing of the London Metropolitan University.