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Challenges to Computer Science Education Research. Mark Guzdial College of Computing/GVU Georgia Tech Bottomline: What we’re doing isn’t new, so a contribution means knowing what’s happened…and going beyond it. Computer Science is new, But Humans aren’t. Evolution is slow.
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Challenges to Computer Science Education Research • Mark GuzdialCollege of Computing/GVUGeorgia Tech • Bottomline: What we’re doing isn’t new,so a contribution means knowing what’s happened…and going beyond it.
Computer Science is new,But Humans aren’t • Evolution is slow. • Lessons from Education are relevant for us. • Humans are bad at estimating their own performance and learning. • Therefore, course opinion surveys are inaccurate measures of educational innovations. • Humans learn throughout their lives—our brains have enormous plasticity. • Therefore, we don’t have to teach everything in the first semester, and people can unlearn “bad habits”
And Computer Science isn’t that new, • People have been studying object-oriented programming since the mid-70’s. • Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg described students getting lost in class hierarchies in 1978. • We’ve known that students confuse class and instance for over 20 years. • If we teach computer applications first, students won’t learn the theory to make it all make sense. • Said Alan Perlis in 1961.
And Computer Science Education isn’t new either • For example: Lessons about Algorithm Animation • Aptitude-Treatment Interaction (ATI) • Static images. • Predictions. • Making own’s own. • A contribution means we have to build on what others have done. • Reinvention is rarely contribution.