Science-teaching cooperation with upper secondary schools
The department has cooperated for over five years with upper secondary schools in the greater Helsinki region to teach computer science. At the moment, the department has a teaching agreement with 14 schools. A total of 13 pupils participated in the spring 2005 entrance exam, and all of them passed.
After passing the entrance exam, the pupils of the participating schools can participate in the basic courses in computer science. This allows them to get to know one branch of academia even before entering university. The programme is also intended to interest and motivate pupils to enter the department after they finish school. The goal is to smooth out the difference between university and school and make the transition from one to the other easier. For the pupils, the programme can clarify study interests and future career choices, motivate present-day studies and emphasize the pupils' own responsibilities in studying. The schools that participate in the programme can raise their profile, utilize scientific expertise, and promote cooperation between university and upper secondary school teachers.
In 2005, the department co-funded the national Science and Mathematics (Luonnontieteet ja Matematiikka, LUMA) centre that operates on the Kumpula campus. The centre was established to support teaching in physics, chemistry, mathematics and computer science by arranging special courses for school pupils and their teachers. Since the department's sub-programme in teaching was to be discontinued, there were no LUMA courses in computer science.
School pupils also compete in information technology on both national and international levels. The Department of Computer Science is responsible for arranging these competitions in Finland during the academic years 2002-2006. With the aid of these competitions, pupils will hopefully gain a broader, deeper interest in information technology, especially algorithm design and implementation – currently, IT education at schools is more focused on the practical side of computer use, and not on scientific or technical problems.
The national competition is called Datatähti (“data star”) and is arranged by the department in co-operation with the Finnish National Board of Education and the union for teachers in mathematical subjects (MAOL ry, Matemaattisten Aineiden Opettajien Liitto). Pupils who are successful in the competition can choose to enter either the Helsinki University Department of Computer Science, the Turku University Department of Information Technology, or the Tampere University Department of Computer and Information Sciences. On an international level, competitions are held for the Baltic area (Baltic Olympiad in Informatics, BOI) and for the worldwide International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), both attended by a team from Finland . The Datatähti competition finds gifted pupils to coach at two training camps at the department. The coach picks the national team from this group. In 2005, three lower-secondary and 12 upper-secondary school pupils qualified for the Datatähti finals on the basis of the qualifying competition, and nine pupils participated in the training camps.
In charge of competitions and coaching: Professor Matti Nykänen.
LUMA centre: http://www.helsinki.fi/LUMA/
School cooperation : http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/abinfo/lukiot.html
Competitions: http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/matti.nykanen/datatahti/