Comments for Computing Education Blog

Comment on Are You a Blue Collar or White Collar Developer? — Datamation.com by Ian Bogost

Ian Bogost — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:10:26 +0000

Here’s a choice comment:

Getting a technical education at a 4-year school is like pulling teeth, because the professors are really there for the grant money. The most important thing I learned was how to read a manual.

Zing.

Comment on What would a CS School of One look like? by Primary education

Primary education — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:03:03 +0000

Then primary Pataskala of any child is there house and his mother and then rest of other things. The Education means in it is an art and science whose learn any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual.

Comment on What would a CS School of One look like? by Joseph Palmour

Joseph Palmour — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:13:09 +0000

Thanks for the reference! Based on the following quote, it looks like we need more tools like iList and my students need less of me drawing diagrams at the board: “Our results suggest that algorithm visualizations are educationally effective insofar as they enable students to construct their own understandings of algorithms through a process of active learning.”

Comment on Update on counting CS for high school graduation requirements in Georgia by The challenge of trying to get a real science of computing in our schools « Tekkie

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:02:39 +0000

[...] had a discussion recently with Prof. Mark Guzdial, some other CS professors, and high school teachers on his blog, [...]

Comment on What would a CS School of One look like? by Mark Guzdial

Mark Guzdial — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:16:21 +0000

The best paper I know in this field is the meta-study of algorithm visualization effectiveness by Chris Hundhausen and John Stasko. They wrote a version of this study as a chapter in Sally Fincher and Marion Petre’s book “Computer Science Education.” You can find references at http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/softviz/publs/publs.html

Comment on What would a CS School of One look like? by Joseph Palmour

Joseph Palmour — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:04:27 +0000

The following quote runs counter to my experiences as a high school CS teacher:

“We could provide students with visualizations, but most of the results I’ve seen suggest that visualizations help the high-ability students to learn more, but they actually hurt low-ability students.”

Perhaps I’m thinking of visualizations in a different way than you are, but visualizations seem to be the tool that the lower-ability students need in order to make progress with difficult topics, but a tool that slows down the process for the high-ability students. For example, object diagrams seem to be necessary for my weaker students when having them write an equals method in Java, but they create boredom for the high-ability students, whose visualization skills are so good that they don’t need the help of an object diagram.

Could you point to the results that lead you to believe visualizations hurt the low-ability student?

Comment on What would a CS School of One look like? by Mark Guzdial

Mark Guzdial — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:53:43 +0000

You may very well be right, Jeff. It’s worth exploring the options, though.
- Your suggestion assumes that the only variable that we can manipulate to provide for the bottom half is time. Could we change our methods?
- Or, maybe we don’t take more time, but cut out some of the fluff of what we teach. Advanced classes sometimes take just as much time as the remedial versions, but cover more content. We might be able to teach to the bottom half by covering less content with better methods.
- Maybe latter classes would go faster if students understood the earlier content better.

Comment on What would a CS School of One look like? by Jeff Graham

Jeff Graham — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:48:49 +0000

It might be pretty expensive to teach to the bottom half. Say the bottom half can go half as fast, then you just added a course to your major requirements (cs 1 in two pieces). Suppose they all survive the second half of cs 1…Now what about cs 2? When does the bottom half get up to speed? Does the whole curriculum need to be doubled? Or halved?

Comment on Are we a bunch of (particularly) grumpy old men? by Jim Huggins

Jim Huggins — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:11:43 +0000

Several thoughts occur.

1) All politics is local. At our university, the CS faculty are viewed as the radicals who are incredibly willing to innovate … and are criticized because we violate the hallowed traditions that have made our institution “great”.

2) Not every outside request for change is well motivated. We get criticisms all the time from outsiders regarding our curriculum from “know-it-alls” who obviously know how to do CS development better than we do, because they once wrote a 50-line C programs that almost worked. Unfortunately, those requests are submitted with just about that much tact. We try to respond professionally, of course … but the time spent in such pursuits makes us suspicious whenever someone else comes along with a “great” new idea.

Having said all of that … sure, we need to be willing to change. But I tend to think that CS, as a discipline, is more open to change than other disciplines … simply because the pace of the field is changing.

Comment on Are we a bunch of (particularly) grumpy old men? by Erik Engbrecht

Erik Engbrecht — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:09:48 +0000

This post made my morning. Thanks.

On a more serious note, what’s in it for the grumpy old men? How will they benefit from changing?