CONTRIBUTIONS OF COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND RELATED RESEARCH IN LEARNING TO THE DESIGN OF COMPUTER LITERACY CURRICULA11A more detailed version of this paper is available as a technical report from the author. Much of the work cited in this paper was supported by grant SED77-19875 from the National Science Foundation and grant NIE-G80-0118 from the National Institute of Education

Publisher Summary This chapter explains techniques for increasing a layperson's view of computers and computer programming. It discusses the usefulness of five recommendations concerning the design of computer literacy curricula: (1) provide the learner with a concrete model of the computer; (2) encourage the learner to actively restate the new technical information in his or her own words; (3) assess the learner's existing intuitions about computer operation and try to build on them, or modify them, as needed; (4) provide the learner with methods for chunking statements into a larger, single, meaningful unit; and (5) provide the learner with methods for analyzing statements into smaller, meaningful parts. Each recommendation is concerned with increasing the meaningfulness of learning new computer information by novices. Information enters the human cognitive system from the outside and must go through the following steps: (1) reception, (2) availability, and (3) activation.