When the educated do not compute
Posted: June 6th, 2010 | Author: starrc@cs.cofc.edu | Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »What happens when students graduate from the College of Charleston (and many other universities in the US) unprepared to engage in a world that is changing faster than they have learned to adapt? They remain blissfully unaware. Fully incognizant of their deficiency, some will wonder why they cannot get a job, move between jobs or keep a job. Few will take the red pill and move through a world in which they will have a chance to affect.
Graduates at large cannot think computationally or recognize computational issues including managing complexity and change. The problem is a curriculum that has not changed enough. The curriculum deficiency starts in K12. We still expect high school students to take multiple years of mathematics but not even a day of computer science. Even worse, high school students in the Charleston County School District at least are required to complete DIT (Digital Input Technologies), aka keyboarding for those of you with college degrees who don’t even know enough to parse the official title. A notable exception is Porter Gaud School’s computer science curriculum in Charleston, SC.
Problem solving, abstractions, and symbolic manipulation may be better learned through a computer science curriculum and within a computational context. Without a computer science course covering computational issues of mind and machines, we graduate students from high school with a middle school preparation for the world of college and work. Likewise few undergraduates programs in the United States state learning outcomes for computational and informational proficiency, including computational thinking. Princeton University’s General Education Program is a notable exception.
Until there is a general education goal for computation/computational thinking or the recognition that computer science is also well positioned to deliver quantitative literacy along side traditional (and nearly unchanging) mathematics, better students will not waiting for a requirement.
You are educated. How could you not compute?
Nowadays computer is a need. Everything is covered by computer. It’s time to set the mindset that technology support education to make it easier.
“We still expect high school students to take multiple years of mathematics but not even a day of computer science”
That is true and its a pity that Computer Science is not taught early. Fora graduate who is not in the scientific, technological or mathematical fields, computer science is a lot more useful than calculus.
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