In need of a Base Case
Comments about coding, research and life

The CSTA and others have been talking a lot about certification as their new report “Ensuring Exemplary Teaching in an Essential Discipline”. The question is as we talk about certification in CS I would caution us against relying too heavily on models of certification for other disciplines.

There was an interesting article a short time ago in Curriculum Matters (an Education Week blog) about some of the identified problems with the teaching profession, especially in STEM disciplines. Also at this year’s IES (Institute for Education Sciences) conference I attended a panel on teacher certification (they were comparing alternative certification against traditional certification, and showed no significant difference in student performance between the two.

As we move computer science forward and hope to better prepare our CS teachers for the classroom, lets make sure that the preparations themselves are right.

So this is a re-post from Peter Lee’s Blog. Apparently CMU professors were asked when the last Star Trek movie came out about how much of the Star Trek technology could become real one day.

This is a great video to show your students to help encourage them to not see technology as fixed, and that no idea is impossible to explore. It may not be possible to make right away - but isnt the journey just as fun?

So, those of you who have talked to me in the past year or two probably know my opinion about “computing for everyone”. I believe that we cannot push an additional course into the already packed HS student schedule, and should instead take advantage of the computer applications requirement that exists in most schools.

That means re-designing computer applications and providing quality professional development for MANY applications teachers that often have business backgrounds and not computer science ones. I think this is much more feasible than requiring a computer science course for every student in addition to the current requirements and trying to put a qualified computer science teacher in each of those classrooms.

In a resent browsing of academic standards in the 50 states for another research project (that you will hear more about later when it becomes public), I came across a newly minted course description for computer applications in Alabama. Now I know you may say - Alabama? when thinking about rigorous standards and technological advances your first thought probably isnt Alabama (unless you are going alphabetically). Yet they seem to be ahead of the rest of us. The course standards can be found here, Its the Technology Education Course of Study.

Tell me what you think. What are they missing? Why are they good standards for EVERY child in high school? I’d love to start a conversation about the standards (not the tools or languages - I think thats another conversation).

(BTW - I REALLY like this course description. REALLY REALLY… I think all they are missing is a standard about open source at this point.)

One of the things I love about being at CMU is the ability to see talks given by the professors here (and even sit in on some of their classes). One of the favorite lecturers in the CS department is Luis von Ahn. Luis developed an entirely new field of computer science called “human computation”. Here is a great video of Luis at the CCC event at the library of congress talking about how his research has changed the world.

I think this is a great thing to show students as it really starts to give them a window into the idea that computer science is not all about the programming - yes there is programming involved in a lot - but it is so much more than that.

Recently there has been an ongoing thread on the SIGCSE list serv about whether or not there is a need for a CS Education PhD. The conversation has gone in multiple directions, some arguing that everyone needs an education degree, and talk about K12 teachers. Here’s my reply:

I have been lurking on this thread for a couple of days, and I would like to weigh in.

I am currently pursuing a self-defined PhD in Computer Science Education from Carnegie Mellon University. The reason it is self defined is because there is no formal program for this. I am building on a core of cognitive science work and computer science fundamentals (since CMU is granting me the degree through the CS department they want to make sure I am qualified).

Before starting this degree I taught K12 for 10 years, and I do not believe that this degree is about making me a better teacher. I do not believe that you need a degree in CS Education to be a good CS teacher at the college or HS level. I do however believe that we need people with CS Education PhD’s to help us shape the curriculum and understand how our students learn.

I have a lot of respect for the work that the SIGCSE community does, however the more work I do in this degree the more I come to understand that education research, especially at the cognitive science level is HARD to do well. In our community we have a large number of CS researchers who are exceptional educators and are doing good research, however there needs to be more work done about the underlying cognitive processes that support the learning of CS.

Not everyone needs a CS PhD’s to be an exceptional teacher, however we do need some CS Ed PhD’s in order to help understand our students, our curriculum and WHY some of our teachers are so exceptional so that we can begin to replicate the small bubbles of excellence that we see throughout high schools and CS departments all over.