1. Why CS Education is an amazing research opportunity Using unhappiness with CS1/2 to define Computing

2. American Universities as an Experiment  Cuban, L. (1999). How the Scholars Trumped the Teachers. New York: Teachers College Press.  German Research University + British Undergraduate System => American land grant universities in the late 1800’s  Started out with no curriculum and weekly 1 hour meetings with advisors  Then student:faculty ratios reached 30:1  Enter the standardized curriculum

3. Programming Education: Pretty Darn Unsuccessful  “Write a program to read in amounts of rainfall. When you read ‘9999’ print the average of the positive integers” 30% of the Freshmen could do this 30% of the Freshmen could do this 50% of the Sophomores (Yale—Soloway, et al., 1982) 50% of the Sophomores (Yale—Soloway, et al., 1982)  Mike’s study: average 27 out of 110 points  Consider CS1322 last semester

4. Example Opportunity: Changing what programming is  People don’t understand iteration (recursion or not) But if it’s a set operation, they do But if it’s a set operation, they do  People don’t understand boolean operations But they can give you a set of examples that enumerate the possibilities But they can give you a set of examples that enumerate the possibilities  Consider: Redefine programming? Kuhn: The Paradigm is the Introductory Textbook Kuhn: The Paradigm is the Introductory Textbook

5. We are the right place at the right time  The pressure on CS Education is the increasing need for Computing Which is forcing the issue of relevance on CS1/2 Which is forcing the issue of relevance on CS1/2  The pressure is external to Computer Science  It’s exactly where a College of Computing fits MIT is Looking to US MIT is Looking to US