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from the does-it-count-as-a-foreign-language dept.
Mark Guzdial at ACM (Association of Computing Machinery) writes:
I have three reasons for thinking that learning CS is different than learning other STEM disciplines.
- Our infrastructure for teaching CS is younger, smaller, and weaker;
- We don't realize how hard learning to program is;
- CS is so valuable that it changes the affective components of learning.
The author makes compelling arguments to support the claims, ending with:
We are increasingly finding that the emotional component of learning computing (e.g., motivation, feeling of belonging, self-efficacy) is among the most critical variables. When you put more and more students in a high-pressure, competitive setting, and some of whom feel "like" the teacher and some don't, you get emotional complexity that is unlike any other STEM discipline. Not mathematics, any of the sciences, or any of the engineering disciplines are facing growing numbers of majors and non-majors at the same time. That makes learning CS different and harder.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @12:41AM (1 child)
Let's investigate this theory.
Think about physics, chemistry, biology, or electronics.
They are all a bit different in what you learn.
But they all have a common thread of how physical things work.
Then think about mathmematics.
Way different, but still seriously (and fundamentally) related to the above.
Then think about CS.
Probably closer to math than math is close to the first group.
So what you need to learn is not what makes CS a different sort of STEM.
Another tack.
Some might say that the interesting thing about CS is how little you have to learn to start making useful things.
Or how much more there is to learn once you start using CS.
Or how much other science is useful to know once you start using CS.
But think about a welder or machinist versus a mechanical engineer.
Pretty much the same story.
Welder or machinist seem stem to me.
If so, then so is CS.
So how about an accountant?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @05:58AM
Creative arts? ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @07:11AM
Yeah. There fixed it for you. If your heart is not in it, you will suck at it. Be that physics, math, chemistry or computer science or a poet.
So, the author is correct and completely wrong. CS is not "special" any more than Physics or Math or History are "special". If your heart is not in it, you will not be very good at it. This is why people are told to do what they love to do because that is the only way to be any good at it.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @05:52PM
fun! Mark Guzdial is lying. To everyone else, but mostly to himself. When he says "We don't realize how hard learning to program is", he is lying. The truth is that Mark Guzdial had a very hard time learning programming, and is frightened that a 5 year old girl in mexico will take his job tomorrow.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Friday January 12 2018, @08:48PM
BS '76, MS '78. Maybe some teacher association started in 2005, but the ACM started in 1947, and the ACM published model curriculum as early as 1970, based on (or bolstered by) work from Waterloo and CalTech and the big computer vendors. As a graduate student in the late '70s, I was a member of SIGPLAN (Programming Languages) and SIGCSE (Computer Science Education). Certainly much has changed over the years, and continual learning is the only way to stay current, and the detailed topic outlines have changed, but people have been thinking about this stuff long before 2005.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Sunday January 14 2018, @07:59AM
In ancient Greece perhaps you would have blocked your ears. Want to refuse to comprehend a winning argument? Back then that was the strategy.