Elementary Math to Close the Digital Skills Gap
Niemelä, P., & Valmari, A. (2018). Elementary Math to Close the Digital Skills Gap. In B. M. McLaren, R. Reilly, S. Zvacek, & J. Uhomoibhi (Eds.), CSEDU 2018 : Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education. Vol. 2 (pp. 154-165). SCITEPRESS Science And Technology Publications. doi:10.5220/0006800201540165
Date
2018Discipline
TietojenkäsittelytiedeCopyright
© 2018 SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda.
All-encompassing digitalization and the digital skills gap pressure the current school system to change. Accordingly,
to ’digi-jump’, the Finnish National Curriculum 2014 (FNC-2014) adds programming to K-12 math.
However, we claim that the anticipated addition remains too vague and subtle. Instead, we should take into
account education recommendations set by computer science organizations, such as ACM, and define clear
learning targets for programming. Correspondingly, the whole math syllabus should be critically viewed in the
light of these changes and the feedback collected from SW professionals and educators. These findings reveal
an imbalance between supply and demand, i.e., what is over-taught versus under-taught, from the point of view
of professional requirements. Critics claim an unnecessary surplus of calculus and differential equations, i.e.,
continuous mathematics. In contrast, the emphasis should shift more towards algorithms and data structures,
flexibility in handling multiple data representations, logic; in summary – discrete mathematics.
...

