The Testing Algorithmic and Application Skills (TAaAS) project was launched in the 2011/2012 academic year to test first year students of Informatics, focusing on their algorithmic skills in traditional and non-traditional programming environments, and on the transference of their knowledge of Informatics from secondary to tertiary education. The results of the tests clearly show that students start their studies in Informatics with underdeveloped algorithmic skills, only a very few of them reaching the level of extended abstract. To find reasons for these figures we have analyzed the students' problem solving approaches. It was found that the students, almost exclusively, only consider traditional programming environments appropriate for developing computational thinking, algorithmic skills. Furthermore, they do not apply concept and algorithmic based methods in non-traditional computer related activities, and as such, mainly carry out ineffective surface approach methods, as practiced in primary and secondary education. This would explain the gap between the expectations of tertiary education, the students' results in the school leaving exams, and their overestimation of their knowledge, all of which lead to the extremely high attrition rates in Informatics.
For the previous six years, under the auspices of the ``Stability Pact of South-Eastern Europe'' and DAAD, a joint project for developing a course in ``Software Engineering'' has been conducted. The intention of the project was to enable usage of shared materials for software engineering courses at a wide range of universities in participating countries. During school-year 2004/05, for the first time the same course, with the same case study, and the same assignments has been conducted at the Humboldt University Berlin, and the University of Novi Sad. In this paper, we share some of the experiences obtained through conducting the same course in the two school-years: 2004/05 and 2005/06.
In the project ``Self-guided Learning in Teaching Mathematics - SEC II'' (SelMa), five authoring schools are working out scenarios, media and materials for phases of self-guided learning, which will be tested systematically by 10 trial schools with regard to their everyday suitability. In this paper three approaches to such learning arrangements (independent learning centre, jigsaw classroom and learning at stations) are being outlined and relevant experiences are being made available. Learning diaries prove to be useful for the learners' reflection of their learning process. The development as well as the management of such learning arrangements does place new demands on the teachers.