Sorting Is Boring: Computing Education Needs to Join the Real World, like MediaComp and worked examples

Agree that we get it backwards in computing education.  We ought to do more with worked examples (a form of “word problems”) — see the argument here.  The point of Media Computation has always been to focus on relevance — what the students think that a computer is good for, not what the CS teacher thinks is interesting (see that argument here).

There are people who love math for math’s sake and devote themselves to proving 1 + 1 = 2. There are more people, however, who enjoy using math to prescribe medication and build skyscrapers. In elementary school, we use word problems to show why it’s useful to add fractions (ever want to split that blueberry pie?) or find the perimeter of a square. We wait until college, when math majors choose to devote four years towards pure math, to finally set aside the word problems and focus on theory. We do so because math is a valuable skill that is used in so many different professions and contexts, and we don’t want kids to give up on math because they don’t think it’s useful.

So, why does computer science start with theory and end with word problems?

via Sorting Is Boring: Computer Science Education Needs to Join the Real World | Jessie Duan.