Using Learning Sciences to Inform Cyber Security Education

I’m giving the keynote talk at the 2015 International Security Education Workshop at Georgia Tech today. I’ve never spoken on cyber security before, so the talk was challenging and fun to put together. I used some of the learning sciences research we’ve done in computing education to draw connections to cyber security education. The lessons I highlight are:

• Context matters.  People only learn when they understand why the learning is useful.
• Identity matters.  People who reject computer science (and that’s most people) will likely reject cyber security education, even if they need to know it.  The cyber security learning that they need to know has to meet their identity and expectations. Don’t expect them to change who they are and what they think is important.
• Structure matters.  Teaching something well, like using subgoal labeling, can dramatically improve learning.

 

(Click on the image below to get to the Slideshare site)