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Computer Science > Computers and Society

arXiv:2504.16966 (cs)
[Submitted on 23 Apr 2025]

Title:Structuring Competency-Based Courses Through Skill Trees

Authors:Hildo Bijl
View a PDF of the paper titled Structuring Competency-Based Courses
Through Skill Trees, by Hildo Bijl
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    Abstract:Computer science education has seen two important
    trends. One has been a shift from raw theory towards skills:
    competency-based teaching. Another has been increasing student
    numbers, with as a result more automation in teaching. When
    automating education, it is crucial to properly structure
    courses, both to manage digitalized educational resources and to
    facilitate automated coaching algorithms. Currently existing
    structuring methodologies are focused around theory and not
    around skills, and are incapable of modeling the dependency links
    between skills. Because of this, a new didactic framework is
    needed.
    This paper presents a new method of structuring educational
    contents around skills: something that a student is expected to
    be able to do. It defines Skill Trees that show dependencies
    between skills, and subsequently couples these to Concept Trees
    that contain intuitive ideas/notional machines. Due to the
    algorithmic nature of computer science, this step-wise approach
    is especially well-suited to this field of education. Next to
    formal definitions on Skill Trees and Concept Trees, guidelines
    are given on how to design them and how to plan a course using
    them.
    The Skill Trees framework has been applied to improve the
    structure of a university database course. Student interviews
    indicated reduced confusion/stress and less study time required
    for students to meet their desired skill level.

Comments: Submitted for publication to Koli Calling '25
Subjects: Computers and Society (cs.CY)
Cite as:  arXiv:2504.16966 [cs.CY]
          (or arXiv:2504.16966v1 [cs.CY] for this version)
          https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.16966
          Focus to learn more
          arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

Submission history

From: Hildo Bijl [view email]
[v1] Wed, 23 Apr 2025 10:44:36 UTC (234 KB)
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