Attending:
- Hélène Martin, Garfield HS
- Andy Davidson, Roosevelt HS
- Mike Panitz, Cascadia CC
- Brett Crane, Redmond JHS
- Earl Bergquist
- Gautam Reddy, Microsoft
- Stuart Reges, UW CSE
Andy reports that Greg received an inquiry from CSTA sister chapter in Dallas/Ft Worth about simulcasting our meetings. They are impressed with our schedule of meeting topics and their members would be interested in hearing some of our presentations. In turn, our sessions would then be available to our members who can’t attend. No one saw any problems with that, except for wondering if the logistics of recording would be feasible and that we would want some of our meeting conversations to be private and not recorded. Stuart will inquire whether we might be able to use a room in the Allen Center that is already equipped for videoconferencing.
The main topic of this meeting was a discussion of the CS Principles project <
csprinciples.org>, led by Hélène. This is an initiative by the College Board and the NSF to explore a new model for an AP CS course. It is related to a project called CS10K, which aims to put 10,000 new high school computer science teachers in classrooms by 2015. [I couldn’t find much of a link for this other than <
www.computingportal.org/cs10k>.]
By way of background, until a few years ago the College Board offered two AP CS exams, called CS A, and CS AB. The A version is the equivalent of a first semester college introductory CS course, while the AB version modeled a full year intro course. The AB test has been discontinued for low participation.
The CS AP exams have not attracted large numbers, and especially not among minorities. (See “Unlocking the Clubhouse” <
mitpress.mit.edu/0262133989> for info about women in computing.)
Since CS A is “only” about programming, which is not all that CS encompasses, the CB feels that its appeal could be broadened by having it deal with more general principles of computing. Hence the CS Principles program -- seven big ideas in computing, only one of which is programming. The seven ideas, reductively, are:
Computing is
- Creative
- Abstraction
- Data and information
- Algorithms
- Programming
- Solving problems
- Enabling innovation
A group of faculty at leading university CS programs told the CB that they did not want the CS A exam replaced by the CS Principles concept. The CB will try to launch that exam in addition to CS A. We had trouble envisioning AP-level exam questions on these topics.
But for that AP exam to be useful, there must be a corresponding college course at these universities. Five universities are running pilot programs of prototypes of this course, often called Computer Fluency/Literacy or Computing for Non-Majors or CS 0 (where CS 1 = AP CS A, and CS 2 = AP CS B). It remains to be seen how these pilots will be received.
Stuart pointed out that CS 1 has been a stable concept for 25 years, which many see as a good thing. Those taking the CB side in favor of CS Principles cite the same 25 years without fundamental change as part of the reason for the low numbers of CS AP takers.
Hélène showed some clips of one pilot, at Berkeley, taught by Dan Garcia and Brian Harvey, entitled The Joy and Beauty of Computing. <
inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs10/> Its premise is that there is more to computing than programming. And yet, only the lectures dealt with the “more,” while all of the considerable lab time was about programming.
Our group was quite skeptical, despite the quality of the course and instructors, about the scalability of this syllabus. Its success depends in large part, like most great teaching, on the knowledge, passion, and pedagogical skills of the teacher to make the subject come alive and inspire the students.
Given that, it seems highly unlikely that large numbers (say 10,000) of teachers with no formal training in computing could become effective teachers of computing principles.
Stuart’s analogy about teaching programming vs computing is:
Programming : CS :: Sex : Pornography
except that in CS, we are ashamed of programming.
So programming is the hook that gets people interested in the surrounding field of CS because it is fun to make things. Then one of the keys is having inspiring exercises and assignments for programming students. <
nifty.stanford.edu> is a great collection of such.
Lots of discussion followed about our various experiences teaching computing and programming.
All in all, a stimulating and thoughtful afternoon on a topic to keep an eye on in the future.
.andy
