Archive for May, 2017
How to be a great (CS) teacher from Amy Ko
Amy Ko from U-W is giving a talk to new faculty about how to be a great CS teacher. I only quote three of her points below — I encourage you to read the whole list. Amy’s talk could usefully add some of the points from Cynthia Lee’s list on how to create a more inclusive environment in CS. CS is far less diverse than any other STEM discipline. Being a great CS teacher means that you’re aware of that and take steps to improve diversity in CS.
My argument is as follows:
- Despite widespread belief among CS faculty in a “geek gene”, everyone can learn computer science.
- If students are failing a CS class, it’s because of one or more of the following: 1) they didn’t have the prior knowledge you expected them to have, 2) they aren’t sufficiently motivated by you or themselves, 3) your class lacks sufficient practice to help them learn what you’re teaching. Corollary: just because they’re passing you’re class doesn’t mean you’re doing a great job teaching: they may already know everything you’re teaching, they may be incredibly motivated, they may be finding other ways to practice you aren’t aware of, or they may be cheating.
- To prevent failure, one must design deliberate practice, which consists of: 1) sustained motivation, 2) tasks that build on individual’s prior knowledge, 3) immediate personalized feedback on those tasks, and 4) repetition.
Source: How to be a great (CS) teacher – Bits and Behavior – Medium
Jean Sammet passes away at age 89
Jean Sammet passed away on May 21, 2017 at the age of 88. (Thanks to John Impagliazzo for passing on word on the SIGCSE-members list.) Valerie Barr, who has been mentioned several times in this blog, was just named the first Jean E. Sammet chair of computer science at Mount Holyoke. I never met Jean, but knew her from her work on the history of programming languages which are among the most fun CS books I own.
Sammet
GILLIAN: I remember my high school math teacher saying that an actuary was a stable, high-paying job. Did you view it that way?
JEAN: No. I was looking in The New York Times for jobs for women—when I tell younger people that the want ads were once separated by gender, they’re shocked—and actuary was one of the few listed that wasn’t housekeeping or nursing, so I went.Sammet found her way to Sperry. “Everything from there, for quite a while, was self-learned,” she says. “There were no books, courses, or conferences that I was aware of.” For her next move she applied to be an engineer at Sylvania Electric Products—though the job was again listed for men.
Source: Gillian Jacobs Interviews Computer Programmer Jean E. Sammet | Glamour
How do we create cyberattack defenders?
Roger Schank (famous AI and cognitive science researcher, the guy who coined the term “learning sciences”) is putting his expertise to the task of creating cyberattack defenders. The description of his process (linked below) is interesting. It has all the hallmarks of his work — innovative, informed by research, driven by concrete tasks. Notice the strong claim that I quoted below. We shouldn’t be aiming for general cyber attack defense skills. These skills are going to be industry-by-industry specific. He’s directly informed by the research that suggests that these skills are unlikely to generalize.
One of the big questions is: where are we going to get the students? How do we recruit students into this kind of program?
How can we help? The cyber attack course Socratic Arts is building for the DOD will be modified to make the projects specific to particular industries. The banks’ problems are obvious: hackers might want to steal money. Pharma’s problems are obvious: hackers might want to steal secrets. We intend to put out versions of our cyber attack course for each industry. These courses will take 6 months for a student to complete. We are not interested in giving an overview in the typical one week course that is no more than an intro. We want to train real cyber attackers who can help. The only way to learn is by practice (with advice). That’s how you learn to ride a bike and that’s how you learn to do anything.
Source: Cyber Attack Academy
Survey to inform the next round of Computing Curricula
We can teach women to code, but that just creates another problem: Why Computational Media is so female
I suspect that the problem described in this Guardian article is exactly what’s happening with our Computational Media degree program. The BS in CM at Georgia Tech is now 47% female, while the BS in CS is only 20% female. CM may be perceived as front-end and CS as back-end.
But here’s the problem: the technology industry enforces a distinct gender hierarchy between front-end and back-end development. Women are typecast as front-end developers, while men work on the back end – where they generally earn significantly more money than their front-end counterparts. That’s not to say that women only work on the front end, or that men only work on the back end – far from it. But developers tell me that the stereotype is real.
The distinction between back and front wasn’t always so rigid. “In the earliest days, maybe for the first 10 years of the web, every developer had to be full-stack,” says Coraline Ada Ehmke, a Chicago-based developer who has worked on various parts of the technology stack since 1993. “There wasn’t specialization.”
Over time, however, web work professionalized. By the late 2000s, Ehmke says, the profession began to stratify, with developers who had computer science degrees (usually men) occupying the back-end roles, and self-taught coders and designers slotting into the front.
Source: We can teach women to code, but that just creates another problem | Technology | The Guardian
Learning Myths And Realities From Brain Science
Interesting results, but also, concerning. People really believe that intelligence is “fixed at birth” and that teachers don’t need to know content? The article has more of these:
On the topic of “growth mindset,” more than one-quarter of respondents believed intelligence is “fixed at birth”. Neuroscience says otherwise.
Nearly 60 percent argued that quizzes are not an effective way to gain new skills and knowledge. In fact, quizzing yourself on something you’ve just read is a great example of active learning, the best way to learn.
More than 40 percent of respondents believed that teachers don’t need to know a subject area such as math or science, as long as they have good instructional skills. In fact, research shows that deep subject matter expertise is a key element in helping teachers excel.
Source: Learning Myths And Realities From Brain Science : NPR Ed : NPR
Increasing the Roles and Significance of Teachers in Policymaking for K-12 Engineering Education
National Academies have released a report that relates to the idea of Engineering for All.
Engineering is a small but growing part of K–12 education. Curricula that use the principles and practices of engineering are providing opportunities for elementary, middle, and high school students to design solutions to problems of immediate practical and societal importance. Professional development programs are showing teachers how to use engineering to engage students, to improve their learning of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and to spark their interest in engineering careers. However, many of the policies and practices that shape K–12 engineering education have not been fully or, in some cases, even marginally informed by the knowledge of teacher leaders.
To address the lack of teacher leadership in engineering education policymaking and how it might be mitigated as engineering education becomes more widespread in K–12 education in the United States, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a convocation on September 30–October 1, 2016. Participants explored how strategic connections both within and outside classrooms and schools might catalyze new avenues of teacher preparation and professional development, integrated curriculum development, and more comprehensive assessment of knowledge, skills, and attitudes about engineering in the K–12 curriculum. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the event.
Hidden Figures of “Computer Science for All”
Nice piece by Ruthe on some of the heroes of the effort to make CS education available to everyone.
You might have noticed computer science and “coding” have become the cause du jour. Celebrities and athletes, governors and mayors, tech icons, and media giants have come out in support of reinvigorating K-12 computer science education in US schools. Coding is now a commonly known term and in January 2016, building on the momentum from the community, President Obama announced the Computer Science for All (CSforAll) initiative, a bold national call to make rigorous computer science (CS) education available to all American students and partner initiatives have formed nationwide including CS4TX, CS4RI, CodeVA and many more. CSforAll is here to stay.
Like every social movement in history, this change didn’t materialize overnight – and like the great social movements that have shaped our country – women have been integral to this movement. I am honored to present just a few of the “Hidden Figures” of K-12 computer science education.
Come visit with me at CAS 2017!
I’m excited to be a guest speaker at the Computing At School conference 2017 (linked below)! Come visit with me in Birmingham June 17.
Barbara and I are going to be teaching on Georgia Tech’s study abroad program in Barcelona this summer. We’ll be there from May 6 to July 30, with a few trips (like to Birmingham) in there. I’ll be at the Turing-China conference in Shanghai May 10-14.
The conference attracts over 300 people each year. Most are teachers in either primary or secondary schools looking to update both their subject knowledge and approaches to teaching computing in their schools. There are talks and workshops for all key phases and for all levels of experience in Computing. Instructions given to ALL speakers and presenters is quite simple: “all attendees must return home with at least one new idea or resource they can use in their classrooms. Whatever your level of confidence with computing as a subject in your classroom this conference is the event for you!
Source: Computing At School
Profile of Ruthe Farmer: This Is How You Advocate For Girls In STEM
Nice piece on fierce CS education advocate, Ruthe Farmer.
Big change is at the forefront of her thinking. When asked what cause she most wants to advance, she has a prompt and specific reply: “I am interested in advancing women at all levels. For women’s rights to education, autonomy, personal safety to be a topic of debate [still] is atrocious. Now is the time for women to lead. I’m particularly concerned about the safety of women on campus. Sexual assault should not be an expected part of the college experience. I refuse to accept that as a norm.”
Education Week covers CS Ed Research presented at AERA
That is not a title I ever thought I’d write for a blog post. How terrific that CS Ed is big at the American Education Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, and is getting coverage in EdWeek! (Thanks to Alfred Thompson for sharing this.)
As the movement has taken off, however, a number of basic questions have yet to be answered, and even more new questions have started to emerge. How do schools make computer science education more accessible for students from groups that have historically been shut out of the field? What types of lessons and programming environments are best for novice learners? How do we know if students are learning what we want them to learn?
And, perhaps most significantly, why are America’s schools seeking to make computer science education universal in the first place?
All are topics that researchers across the country are actively investigating.
MOOCs don’t serve to decrease income inequality
At this year’s NSF Broadening Participation in Computing PI meeting, I heard a great talk by Kevin Robinson that asked the question: Do MOOCs “raise all boats” but maintain or even increase income inequality, or do they help to reduce the economic divide? It’s not the question whether poor students take MOOCs. It’s whether it helps the poor more, or the rich more.
Kevin has made his slides available here. The work he described is presented in this article from Science. I want to share the one slide that really blew me away.
The gray line is the average income for US citizens at various ages. As you would expect, that number generally increases up until retirement. The black line is the average income for students in Harvard and MIT’s MOOC participants. The MOOC participants are not only richer, but as they get older, they diverge more. These are highly-privileged people, the kind with many advantages. MOOCs are mostly helping the rich.
Computing Ed Research - Guzdial's Take 
Recent Comments