A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

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Teaching in the disciplines
However, it is widely acknowledged that in supporting a diverse range of students and
student ability academic staff need to learn new skills to move from traditional to e-
tutoring mode. In order to take full advantage of these emerging technologies, computing
science academics must keep abreast of current good practice which will inform local
developments and ensure effective exploitation of existing resources.
Learning environments and resources
Computing science education promotes independent learning as an important feature.
However, it is no longer funded as a laboratory subject, although classroom and laboratory
teaching are both important and integral parts of the educational provision.
As part of the overall learning environment, lectures, assessments, case studies, library
material (conventional and digital), websites, videos, software, standards and laboratory
provision have all contributed to students of computing science. The computing science
curriculum further requires specialised material to support the teaching of the subject in
the form of software libraries, programming language development tools, graphics
packages, network analysers, multimedia development tools and project management
tools. Even the basic resource material is comprehensive and expensive for departments
to maintain and keep current. New versions of software frequently appear within the
time-span of one programme. There is thus heavy reliance on equipment and software,
which is expensive to purchase and subject to continual and rapid development.
Developing the practical skills associated with programming can be particularly time
and resource intensive: it is therefore important that there is access to adequate and
appropriate resources for this purpose.
OVERVIEW
Future learning is most likely to embrace more electronic resources, online material and
electronic communication. Students of computing science will be adept at recognising the
computer as a tool to aid learning, in addition to their study of computing as an academic
subject. Academic institutions are increasingly using VLEs to meet the diversity of student
learning needs and particularly of students off-campus. Virtual worlds (e.g. Second life
http://secondlife.com) are seen as a comprehensive multimedia and interactive
environment, modelling the real world to the extent that a virtual classroom can be
created.
Information and communication technologies, services and networks are rapidly
transforming the way people live, work and learn. Preparing individuals with the
knowledge and skills they need for the emerging ‘Information Society’ and for continued
lifelong learning is becoming a priority task for educators at all levels. Competence in ICT
is rapidly becoming a ‘life skill’ that ranks alongside basic literacy and numeracy.
Computing science graduates clearly have the necessary IT skills. However, it is the