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ACM India Education Committee. Mathai Joseph ACM Education Council, Denver, Mar 2013. Education Committee. Set up in October 2012 Members from across India Academic and industrial Mandate: W ork to improve CS education in schools & colleges All work by volunteers, needs careful pacing
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ACM IndiaEducation Committee Mathai Joseph ACM Education Council, Denver, Mar 2013
Education Committee Set up in October 2012 • Members from across India • Academic and industrial Mandate: • Work to improve CS education in schools & colleges All work by volunteers, needs careful pacing Partnership between Ed Comm and chapters
Directions Initial discussions suggested three directions: • CS education in schools • Workshops for college teachers • Use of online courses
CS in Schools • Computing taught as computer literacy • Elementary programming, word processing, spreadsheets, use of CAD • Suitable for schools leavers who get jobs • Poor preparation for serious study of CS • Teachers not equipped to teach CS Meeting planned for June 2013 in Pune with school heads, CS/IT teachers, policy makers
Workshops for College Teachers • Most college CS teachers lack a CS background • Some graduated from the courses they teach • Syllabus is nominally adequate • Examination follows prescribed pattern Series of 5-day workshops planned to help teachers with core material: • Hyderabad in May 2013 on algorithms • Trivandrum in September 2013 on algorithms
Online Courses Original aim was to develop online material Major re-think after creation of Udacity, Coursera, Google Coursebuilder etc. • Content widely available for core material Discussions with Google, Coursera on platforms Supplementary material: • Problem sets for selected courses • ‘Approach’ courses to bring students to right level
Early Days Education Committee has made a start • Long way to go Being volunteer-driven has limitations • Members with most to contribute are also busy Need to widen participation further Need to link with similar efforts elsewhere
ACM India Dissertation Award International screening committee Entries invited from all CS departments in India After screening, short list of 4-5 • Winner:Ruta Mehta, IIT, Bombay"Nash Equilibrium Computation in Various Games“ • Hon mention: SrikanthSrinivasan, IMSc, Chennai"New Directions in Arithmetic &Boolean Circuit Complexity" Best dissertation to enter ACM dissertation award