A Novel Task-Based Teaching Strategy for Computer Majors

In China, almost every college has set up computer major, and undergraduates majoring in computer outnumber any other majors. Since the skill to use computer has been regarded as one of the three basic capabilities in the 21th century, students have to learn computer courses ever from primary school. But the traditional method to teach computer in college that too much attention used to be paid to abstract concepts and boring theories, has been proven to be impractical according to the feedback collected from workplaces. Therefore, it is agreed that greater importance should be attached to the skills that are necessary in workplaces so as to improve studentspsila abilities to use computer, communication appliances and applied software as well as to design software and hardware. In this study, a novel Task-Driven strategy (TDS) for computer major teaching is proposed. This strategy enables undergraduates to better prepare themselves for future complicated tasks, rather than provide them with fragmentary and partial knowledge. In addition, it can help build up the studentspsila sense of achievement, and make computer education more interesting and attractive. This strategy, which provides enough chances for students to learn from near-real tasks, will pave the way to show undergraduates the whole work procedure from an integrated viewpoint, improve their capabilities to learn knowledge and to solve problems independently. The novel teaching strategy, TDS, has been proven to be effective.