Over 15 years have passed since high school subject “Information” was set up. It has been widely known difficulties in teacher training of the subject. In this article, we initially sort out the establishment circumstances of the subject and its organization. We then detail the actual situations in teacher training of the subject based on the results of a survey we conducted. Moreover, we describe the trends of teacher recruitment examination based on the results of another survey. Finally, we discuss the future challenges.

This study investigated the association between seductive details effect and level of learning vocabulary. An online experiment targeting participants aged 18–29 was conducted in April 2018 (n＝936; 407 men and 529 women). Participants were randomly divided into two groups and provided an educational session on English vocabulary. Only one group was presented seductive details (i.e., a stopwatch and number of learners currently online). KATAGIRI’s (2002) 10-minute vocabulary test was administered before and after the session, and scores were compared across groups. The results showed that seductive details helped lower-level learners, which was mediated by their time spent in learning. In other words, learning seems to be expedited by seductive details among lower-level learners. However, seductive details inhibited higher-level learners. It was interpreted that seductive details inhibited metacognitive monitoring in higher-level, which they often use as a learning strategy.

Blocks of programming code can be understood according to the functions they serve, and these blocks can be saved for later reuse. When trying to grasp the functioning of large programs, it is important to understand blocks of code as functionally significant chunks, which this study refers to as “modules”. Further, we position “structural understanding” as the ability to recognize and acquire significant blocks of code as modules, to recognize and acquire combinations of modules as larger modules, and to create combinations of these larger modules. We propose the Expandable Modular Statements Method as a learning support method for structural understanding in which learners first examine programs line-by-line to construct modules for each significant chunk of code and modify constructed modules by adding code or existing modules. Development and evaluation of a system employing this method demonstrate learner receptivity and the system’s usefulness for structural understanding.