Sense-Making Frameworks in Computing and Engineering Education

This full paper addresses the concept of metanarrative in computing and engineering education: the presence of an overarching meta-narrative which provides a sense of integration and some degree of connection and coherence to the elements under study. This meta-narrative should firstly provide a mechanism for discussing the fundamental entities under consideration, as well as the relationships between these and other, derived, concepts. Secondly, it should indicate what counts as valid knowledge, as well as legitimate ways of arriving at such knowledge. Thirdly, it should indicate how and where the concept of value arises in the content and practice of the subject. The meta-narrative should therefore provide a vehicle which encompasses the subject ontology, its epistemology and methodology, and its axiology (i.e., its ethics and aesthetics). In other words, the meta-narrative should provide a philosophy of that subject.