Designing a Competency-Oriented Prep Course for First-Year CS Students

摘要

In many Computer-Science study programs, first-year students struggle with the transition from secondary school to academic education. To improve the situation at our institution, we designed an innovative, competency-oriented prep course for our first-year students. Instead of just repeating basic mathematics, this preparatory course took a more holistic approach by addressing both technological and non-technological skills that are considered to be essential for a successful start in CS-related study programs. These competences comprise self-regulation and learning techniques, problem solving, abstract and logical thinking as well as the reactivation of fundamental mathematics from school. To analyze the effectiveness of our approach, we evaluated the pilot run.