Broadening Participation in Computing by Moving Away from Computer Science: Information, Arts, Humanities, and Sciences offer better models for #CSforAll

 In April, I gave a talk at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software and Societal Systems Department (S3D) “Broadening Participation in Computing by Moving Away from Computer Science” — slides available here, and video available here.

The argument I’m making is that computer science as a field has become more narrow over time. I wrote a CACM Blog Post last month where I provided several definitions of computer science: “Education is always changing: We need to define CS to keep the good stuff.” The earliest definitions of computer science described it as something to be taught to everyone, a critical literacy for 21st century citizenry, and touching on many different aspects of modern life. (I tell the story of those early definitions in this blog post.) More modern computer science definitions are much more narrow.

Computer science departments perform a critical function. They produce software professionals. Our society needs those. But that’s not the only societal need for computing education. CS departments also perform a gatekeeping function so that they can certify their graduates as ready for professional programming. If we want “Computing Education for All” with alternative endpoints, we need less of that.

During the pandemic, I worked with a Computing Education Task Force at my University to discover what kinds of computing education was currently available (see that story here and our final report here) across the campus. There’s a lot, even outside of CS. Arts teaches wonderful courses on expression with computing. Sciences teach how to discover with computing. Humanities reflects on the role of computing in society and critiques our digital and computational systems. Our School of Information teaches similar introductory computing courses to what we offer in CS, but with a focus on data science, user experience, and impact on society.

I suggest in my talk that new initiatives like our Program in Computing for the Arts and Sciences in University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) is more likely to invent computing education for everyone than will CS departments. The first half of my talk is about the history of computing education and about the narrowing of definitions (for which I use the U-M CSE standard slide templates), and the second half (for which I use the U-M LSA standard slide templates) is about PCAS, our new courses, and how this serves to broaden access to and participation in computing education.

Let’s think about how we could broaden our goals beyond CS departments and CS majors in K-12 education. Advanced Placement CS A and CS Principles are tightly tied to CS curriculum. What would it look like to create Advanced Placement exams for other needs for computing education? For example, what would an AP in Computational Science look like? What would it mean to value alternative endpoints in “Computing Education for All”?