Integrated View at the MTCS Course Organization: The Case of Recursion

This chapter presents an optional organization theme for the Methods of Teaching Computer Science (MTCS) course around the concept of recursion. Based on the active learning-based teaching model, a series of themes is suggested, each one highlights a different pedagogical perspective. The themes are: classification of recursive phenomena (a nonprogramming task), the “leap of faith” approach, models of the recursive process, research on learning/teaching recursion, how does recursion sound? (the case of trees and fractals), evaluation (a nonprogramming project and a test construction), and a list of additional activities that illustrates that recursion can, indeed, be the focus of almost any topic discussed in the MTCS course. Each theme is accompanied with activities devoted to recursion to be facilitated in the MTCS course.