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What is computer science?

What is computer science?. The study of how process and data can be digitized and automated. Science ? It’s not about the natural world. It does involve experimentation, model-building, and inquiry. Math ? Closest, except… Engineering ? We build things: Important, big, useful things.

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What is computer science?

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  1. What is computer science? • The study of how process and data can be digitized and automated. • Science? • It’s not about the natural world. • It does involve experimentation, model-building, and inquiry. • Math? • Closest, except… • Engineering? • We build things: Important, big, useful things. • All our human processes are Engineering.

  2. Victims of our Own Success • Computer science is not about using programs. • Good human-computer interface design makes CS invisible. • Students believe CS is about using Photoshop and Microsoft Office. • So much of what we teach is seen as “irrelevant, tedious, and boring.”

  3. Challenges of Computing Education • Enrollment has declined. • CS in the Western world is virtually all White or Asian male. • Majority female in Islamic world. • Programming is our most powerful tool, yet we don’t know how to teach it well. • Every major study of programming competence in 30 years encounters a floor effect. • Success rates in introductory courses are 50-70% worldwide.

  4. US Enrollment in CS 2010 CRA Taulbee Survey of PhD-granting institutions

  5. Challenges of Computing Education • What we teach is too useful. • We know little about learning concepts, because we (and our students) focus on skills. • Creates opportunities for developing world…which influences opinion in developed world. • We mostly teach how to be a professional software engineer. • There are three times as many non-professionals who program: Badly, inefficiently, with little knowledge. • We need to be able to teach others about computing, such as high school teachers.

  6. What works in computing education • Teaching in an application context provides relevance. • Higher pass rates. • Our tools are nearly-infinitely malleable. • We can change the interface, but not the cognitive task. • It’s always about runnable models executed by another agent.

  7. One-class CS1: Pass (A, B, or C) vs. WDF (Withdrawal, D or F)

  8. Media Computation:Teaching in a Relevant Context • Presenting CS topics with media projects and examples • Iteration as creating negative and grayscale images • Indexing in a range as removing redeye • Information encodings as sound visualizations • Creative, open-ended assignments. def clearRed(picture): for pixel in getPixels(picture): setRed(pixel,0) 8

  9. Results:CS1“Media Computation”

  10. Wide range of tools and contexts • Alice, Scratch, Greenfoot, Pleo Dinosaurs, Electric Pickles But cognitive task remains the same.

  11. Where we need Learning Sciences help • Teaching the teachers. • Challenge of CS10K with no infrastructure, no trappings of teacher identity. • Defining CS PCK. • Measuring knowledge. • Why care? It’s about equity.

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