Implementing a new Computer Science Curriculum for middle school in Israel

A new way of teaching programming skills to K-12 students: Code.org

“…Bargury et al, 2012;Bers, Flannery, Kazakoff, & Sullivan, 2014;Grgurina, Barendsen, Zwaneveld, van Veen, & Stoker, 2014;Grout & Houlden, 2014;Jones, 2013;Kalelioglu, Gülbahar, Akçay, & Dogan, 2014;Lee, Martin, & Apone, 2014;Repenning, Webb, & Ioannidou, 2010). There are many emerging applications that can be used to teach students computer science, robotics programming, and drag and drop blocks.…”

A nationwide exam as a tool for improving a new curriculum

“…The CS curriculum emphasizes fundamental computational thinking and focuses on basic algorithmic structures such as conditions and loops; it is based on the idea that computational thinking is the key for understanding CS [3,4,6]. The CS curriculum and its implementation are described in [7] and [8], respectively. The nationwide test includes questions from different levels according to Bloom's taxonomy [1,2] …”

“…STEP seeks to increase the number of high-school graduates that have the skills and knowledge needed to become successful undergraduate students in science and engineering. The principles of STEP are described in [7,8].…”

A Tale of Two Countries

“…In 2011, however, the Ministry of Education launched a new study program emphasizing science education. The program, called STEP-Science and Technology Excellence Program-begins in the seventh grade [Zur-Bargury 2012;Zur-Bargury et al 2012. In this science-motivated program, computer science, physics, biology, and chemistry play the same role, thus it was necessary to prepare a computer science middle-school curriculum.…”

“…In 2012 the Israeli Ministry of Education also launched a program to enhance science and technology education. This six-year program covering grades seven through twelve introduces a new computer science curriculum for middle schools [Zur-Bargury, 2012;Zur-Bargury et al 2012.…”