Mind Stretching at ACM SIGCAS (Computers & Society) Meeting

Hidden Near a Freeway Old Meets New

As always, my SIGCSE (ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education) week hit the ground running. Barely had I gotten to my hotel room and hooked up with my roomie than she and I were plotting and planning. So far this year we have not blown up anything or needed to call hotel mechanics. Such a shame.

My day today started off with a bone chilling walk to explore the Kansas City area in search of...whatever. Bone chilling mostly because it was below 20F and I didn't have winter clothes. My eyebrow had just about frozen together along with the freezing of my knuckles as I kept whipping out my camera to capture something just too good to pass up (see archaeology picture above) when I ran into three guys with no jackets at all (they must be natives because they didn't look half as brittle as I did in my fleece jacket) who directed me to a local independent coffee shop where I recuperated while supporting free trade coffee.

Some time later I found myself (by design) in the SIGCAS meeting (Special Interest Group on Computers and Society) which traditionally takes place the day before the start of the SIGCSE Technical Symposium. One interesting presentation after another about incorporating socially beneficial projects and activities into the computer science curriculum. Some projects were very local and some were global. From Latina community concerns to water scarcity allocation modeling to Bangladesh. By the end of the afternoon all sorts of ideas were flying through my head.

For example...

What makes a "Good" computing professional? We're talking "good" in the sense of socially beneficial, rather than technically good. More to the point, how do we know? How do we evaluate this term? (Do we want to evaluate it? Define it?) It's interesting to think about this because if we want to encourage the integration of socially / environmentally beneficial considerations into the very heart of the curriculum, how do we know we are doing it well? If we want computing professionals to integrate a social consciousness into their work how do we determine what that looks like? Or, do we even want to do this? It is worth pondering from a first principles perspective.

How are Codes of Conduct interpreted across cultures? Several global organizations such as ACM and IEEE have codes of conduct that professional members are asked to adhere to. It hadn't occured to me until today that this could be tricky due to differences in cultural interpretations of what is ethical. The idea was planted in my head because one of the presenters today said a segment of their students (economically disadvantaged, from some developing nations) said the hardest part of these Codes to adhere to would be the prohibition on taking bribes. Really? The hardest. Well, when you think about cultures where taking bribes is endemic, and business is done that way, ... sure it might be really hard to imagine bucking the system. I ask myself...how might one determine how "bad" this activity really is? Might one for example need to follow the chain reaction effect of individual bribes? How bad is it if it gets things done? Whoa....

We know that story telling, making content personal, is an effective way of making material (academic in this case) engaging and accessible. Some programming languages, (many?) don't, by their very nature, lend themselves to story telling. Java comes to mind. Python. Scratch? As opposed to a language like Alice. So, how might we talk about incorporating story telling into teaching introductory programming? This sounds like a really interesting challenge. Can it be done? I'd love to see ideas kicked around about this.

I gotta say that this was one dynamic meeting. The group made some decisions about action items to take, which, darn it, I missed due to having to boogie off to a meeting of the ACM Education Council. However, I'll find out and report back on this at a later date with a followup.

Tomorrow, the SIGCSE conference starts. Turbo charged. Stay tuned.

Engrossing legislative updates for CA Computer Science

Last evening I sat in on a meeting of the San Diego Chapter of the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA). We met in the San Diego Super Computer Center. In case you aren't all that familiar with the CSTA they are a very active national group of Computer Science Teachers (primarily in K-12) along with supporters and friends of K-12 CS education throughout education, government and industry. Their advocacy work for inclusion of CS throughout K-12 is impressive. They also publish periodic reports on the state of CS Education throughout the country. One of the most recent is "Bugs in the System: Computer Science Teacher Certification in the U. S." which paints a painful picture of the crazily complicated state of certification for would be computer science teachers.

At times there is news to be optimistic about and I heard some of it last night. Jason Weiss, a representative from the office of California State Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins gave the group a legislative update on 6 bills of interest for CS education in the state. As you may or may not know, depending upon how much you pay attention to the political process of passing bills, the system at the state level in many ways mirrors the process at the federal level. Both chambers of government have to pass a bill; one, then the other, and if amendments are made the bill goes back and forth to be resolved. Or perhaps it dies a quiet death for one of a variety of reasons. Eventually, if all goes well, a bill pops out of the system, perhaps like a champagne cork, and heads to the Governors office to be signed (or not).

Of the six bills, (CA AB1764, CA AB1530, CA AB1539, CA AB1540, CA AB2110, CA SB1200) most are making good progress.

They talk about a bill being "engrossed". Most of these bills were engrossed. I don't know who came up with this word choice; believe it or not it means that a bill is in a certain stage of that bouncing back and forth. Specifically, it means the bill has come out of (escaped?) from the chamber that initially filed it and it is on its way to the other chamber. Considering that amendments have often been incorporated, perhaps "engorged" would be a better word.

Most of the bills are doing well so far on their journey:

CA AB1764 would allow 3rd year Math credit to be awarded for Computer Science. This bill exited out at the end of April without opposition. How nice! (I originally wrote "passed out" but that has potential for far too many amusing interpretations)

CA AB1530 would include CS in the K-6 curricula. This bill exited out May 27th also without opposition. Moving right along...

CA AB1539 Sets content standards for computer science. Jason Weiss wasn't sure of the status of this bill as it was being considered yesterday afternoon, but from my wading through the weeds of relevant web pages, it appears to me to have passed along successfully.

Likewise, CA AB2110 which also relates to CS and content standards, continues its journey; gorey details can be found here, as does CA SB1200 which would establish standards for CS to be set that would be accepted by (presumably CA state) colleges and universities. It is on its way ....

And yes, that last one is SB1200 not AB1200. If you look up AB1200 you will find yourself reading about a vetoed bill related to recycled water in agriculture.

The lonely exception to this optimistic news is CA AB1540 which relates to high school students being able to take CS courses at community college. Jason told us the bill didn't get a hearing, which is better than being Vetoed I suppose. Officially, as they say,  it is "held under submission" (go figure). Jason told us this most likely has to do with a cost issue of some sort that needs to be addressed. So we haven't necessarily heard the last of CA AB1540. But for this year at least it languishes. It doesn't even get to claim to have been engrossed.

Not Even in Silicon Valley!

Entrepreneurs Hard at Work

Recently, several friends of mine who run startups in the San Francisco Bay Area and I have been talking about school age kids and computer science education opportunities. My friends are not only dedicated entrepreneurs but dedicated parents of elementary age children and they are highly motivated to see to it that their kids obtain quality exposure to computer science early.

You'd think that in Silicon Valley of all places, there would be no end to the list of CS activities to choose from. Piece of cake? Apparently not. When my friends first told me there was something missing from computer science offerings I was surprised and very curious. I'm hanging out in SV this week and so I started doing some investigation.

Not surprisingly, there is a relative lack of computer science teachers in the public schools here. This is a nationwide problem and here, where rents and mortgages are as sky high as the private sector tech salaries, it's hardly surprising that modestly paid computer science teachers are few and far between.

There are lots of startups in the K-12 coding space - I've written about them here a few times. For the average parent however, working in hi-tech or not, these startups have no impact on their own kids. As one of my friends told me, they can't afford to wait 5 - 10 years to see what pans out because by then their kids will have graduated from high school.

There are science camps; math camps; weekend programs, and clubs. Oodles of them. Some of these have some computing in them. Some, a few, involve some coding. What my friends told me is missing  is something that is broader, deeper and that lasts longer than a day, or even a week. Something with continuity. My next thought was, what about the various national competitions? There are decathlons in math and science, there are several programs with the approach taken by Odyssey of the Mind (OM). What about them? I started reading about these and other programs.

No computer science. Not even close. No computer science in the national science decathlons; no computer science in the math decathlons; no computer science in OM and related programs. They cover just about everything else: many fields of science, wide and creative applications of math, the performing and visual arts, history, literature, engineering, design. 'Technology' usually translates into anything but computer science. Engineering translates into ... engineering.

Parents have a right to be unhappy. You don't have  to be a hi-tech parent to be unhappy. Hi-tech parents are at least aware of the lack of computer science opportunities both in and out of the formal curriculum. How many parents who are not in hi-tech careers are even aware of what is missing? The more I read, the more I dug, the more sure I became that I wasn't going to find computer science embedded in any of these otherwise academically diverse competitions for kids.

What's with that?

That Was Then, This Is Now. Can Coding Improve Reasoning Ability?

Reasonable?

Back in the 90s when I was starting my teaching career we used to talk in the CS Ed community a lot about the importance of math as a prerequisite for computer science. More precisely, I recall discussions about what level of math and what kind of math. I was working at a community college at the time and had perhaps the most diverse students I have ever had since.

Some were fresh out of high school, some were recent Veterans, some had been laid off from a dying  industry, some were re-entering the workforce after taking time to raise kids, some were in workforce retraining programs, some were retired. Some students had a prior Bachelors degree, some had barely made it out of high school. I encountered home schooled students, immigrants from war zones (one particular student from Cambodia comes vividly to mind) and those seeking to leave lives as migrant farm workers.

They shared a desire to obtain a computing degree and enter the computing workforce. The majority were highly motivated and great to work with. Yet many had limitations placed on them by external agencies or other equally firm obligations that restricted how long they could be in school and how many courses they could take - especially courses considered pre-college level, and thus remedial.

Thus the arguments about what math and how much math to take had very real consequences. Tell a student they had to take x courses before they could start college level CS and this could set them back a year or more that they did not have. As a result, in our college, as in others, the question of what math to require became in great part one of what the reason was to have the math.

The most common argument of the time, one I haven't heard as much recently, was that math, algebra in particular, trained you to think logically and sequentially. The extent to which this was true was taken as a given; I didn't have exposure to the math ed literature until some years later. However, I did learn pretty quickly that, although correlation does not equal causation, those students who had survived college algebra were less likely to look at 20 lines of sequential code and suggest executing them by bouncing back and forth around the screen like a ping pong ball. And of course, the bottom line was that if they wanted to transfer from a 2 year computer science program into a 4 year computer science program they were going to need that math.

Nowadays the CS Ed community is discussing equally energetically the usefulness of learning to program and the doors coding can open. Coding: the typical entry into a computing degree and a constant throughout. And, as we know from lots of hard data, computing degrees can lead to exciting and well paying careers. There is also an enthusiastic conversation going on about the useful things that can result from learning to code and getting that computing degree even if you ultimately decide to enter a seemingly unrelated field (ref: computational thinking and computational XYZ from art to geology and on through the humanities)

In one of those "that was then, this is now" moments, I'm wondering...wondering if learning to program, supports a general ability to reason. Before you say "of course - duh!" ask how you know. I'm  talking about more than low level step by step logical/sequential reasoning. I'm thinking about a more holistic reasoning ability.  Have we studied this? This would be so cool to study.

I suspect that the answer will be yes or no - it depends. As with so many things, such as with math and logical thinking, it depends. Context matters for one thing. For example, I posit that if we teach coding in the context of well chosen societally relevant challenges and follow through on the social impact of every stage of project development...hmm, yes, I think so. Holistic reasoning ability could well improve. (Who wants to fund the study?)

A belief in the importance of societal considerations throughout computing is one reason why the CS2013 curricular guidelines (pdf file) include an expanded section on Social and Professional Issues. Good technical decision making assumes results that ack and respond to complex problems requiring complex reasoning. We as a community are starting to get with the program (ow) and to value integrating societal consciousness into our technical projects as never before. I bet, that many of my former community college students, wherever they are, get it loud and clear.

UX (and related) Education Listings

As promised, this post contains a listing, with links, to the education options I presented at this evening's San Diego UX Speakeasy meetup. (More on the meetup itself in the next post)

There is an enormous selection of education and training options out there and this is only a small sampling; enough to give you some ideas and get you started. Not listed here for the most part are conferences, because although conferences often have educational activities and workshops, conferences were covered by my esteemed colleague Bennett King and a cohort of other enthusiastic people.

Minus the pithy commentary that was included in the live version, here are those links:

Interaction Design Foundation - Open Education Materials ; included here is the “Encyclopedia of Human Computer Interaction”, comprised of 40 “textbooks”. Lots of very interesting in depth reading here. Other good stuff as well on their site.

The UX Bookmark - UX books, videos. Awesome resources with in-depth info. Well maintained.

User Interface Engineering (UIE) - Virtual Seminars, Mobile Immersion, UI18 On Demand. Something for every level of engagement.

Cooper - A design and consulting firm. They have "Cooper U" offering in person courses, and also UX Boot Camp (this is the one I'd really like to attend! in my mind I'm already writing the blog post about it!)

Adaptive Path - another consultancy. Offerings include UX Week, an annual conference, and UX Intensive, a 4 day workshop held in various places around the globe.

Neilsen Norman Group - another consultancy. Offerings include Usability Weeks (one of which will be held here in San Diego next month) and a 3 day Usability Camp.

General Assembly -  A training organization with branches in several cities. Set up to resemble in some ways an academic environment. Offerings include one day events such as a hackathon, & several months long classes.Here is the Los Angeles branch.

Open2Study - Free online courses. Based out of Australia, profs are global. Wide offerings including some interesting UX courses and psychology (a hot topic in some UX circles).

Udacity - one of the famous MOOCs. Offerings across the spectrum of fields from the arts to engineering. Offerings include Computer Science, computing applications (such as web dev't and mobile and design)

Coursera - another of the famous MOOCs. Mission statement talks about providing equal access to education; they have the most demographically diverse team of technical people of all the education sites I surveyed for this presentation. Offerings include Computer Science, engineering, data/stats, programming, HCI, lots of business courses (entrepreneurship, management, marketing etc)

HackDesign - an interesting self described "experiment" for developers who want to learn design. Self-paced course that comes to your inbox.

Online User Experience Institute - lots of UX courses. Has been around quite a while compared to its competitors. 

The Stanford Design ("d") School. If you really want to go for it and get a degree. They also offer individual classes, and an interesting 90 minute crash course for pairs.

Did I miss one of your favorites? If you have a listing you'd like added, send it!

An Answer to the Vexing CS Ed Question: "What Should We Do?"

A few days ago I was  having a conversation with some computing faculty about their proposed curriculum development; the topic came up of how to make certain courses appealing to under represented groups. These faculty are all too aware of the need to increase the demographic diversity in the computing classroom. We talked about a variety of approaches that made sense for their situation and laid out the beginnings of a plan to implement the ideas.

Later on, as I was mulling over the next steps in their plan, it occurred to me that I have had a similar conversation a lot recently. It often starts when, somewhere in a curriculum revision discussion, someone mentions the low numbers of certain demographic groups. A few moments later someone says "what do we do?". Accustomed to focusing on the technical aspects of curriculum development the group is silent.

Complex and challenging it is. Whole books and endless research studies have identified things you ought to pay attention to. One of those things is context. Context is everything, including but not solely limited to, your institution and your student population. As much as we might like, there is no silver bullet, no one size fits all. That is why it is easy to feel overwhelmed.

Fortunately, there is something concrete you can do to get moving in the right direction and make a difference. Something that any one can do.

Start by asking yourself these questions:  What specific examples do you plan to give in class, in modules you develop? What exact contexts do you plan to embed your assignments and projects in? As much as possible try to avoid answering in generalities.

Probably you find these examples and contexts interesting or else you wouldn't choose them. But does the under represented demographic group you want to attract and engage find them interesting as well? How do you know? Do you think so? Do you assume so? Where's the data to back it up?

It is easy to act upon assumptions. It is easy to overlook that you are making decisions based upon unexamined assumptions. It is easy to assume that something you find interesting is likewise interesting to others.

Yet, in terms of getting students excited about [fill in your topic], those assumptions can lead to problems when we belatedly find out that the demographic of student we care about just doesn't find our examples relevant to their lives. (perhaps the most classic example is presenting science and math concepts using automobiles and sports. these subjects have a pretty solidly documented track record of being far less appealing to girls than boys.) Unfortunately, the solution is not as simple as finding "neutral" examples. As ample research has also shown there really isn't any such thing as a "neutral" example.

However There is Hope! Herein lies a simple thing you can do to get the ball rolling. It is so simple that it can be overlooked. I suspect that is why I get asked "what should we do?" as often as I do. 

Place your technical content in a social context in which coming up with the solution allows the student to see a positive difference made for someone or something. A lot of students really grok that.

If you don't believe me, you can dig up the research. If you do so, you will find along the way that it is very important to use social contexts that your target groups have an affinity for. Don't just choose whatever comes into your head or you are likely to be back where you started - winging it and hoping your demographic population also finds it interesting. So you have some work to do. You need to find out what is interesting to them. This doesn't mean something trivial. As a matter of fact, trivial fluffy examples are disastrous - you trivialize the material and yourself in the eyes of the students. You do have some work to do to discover what are meaningful non-trivial examples.

We aren't going to solve the entire problem of recruitment and retention in computing by integrating socially meaningful examples into all aspects of technical content presentation. But it is an important start.

Becoming aware of the fact that you may be making implicit assumptions about what are (are not) interesting contexts is a huge step in the right direction. Taking stock of the context in which you frame your technical content and questioning your assumptions about why you think it is engaging is another huge step in the right direction. Going out and attempting to find out what the students you want to engage in computing find interesting is a humungous step.

So Close But Yet So Far Wired Magazine!

An article in this month's Wired magazine made me momentarily want to beat my head on the wall. The cover story, with the somewhat misleading title "The Next Steve Jobs", is about how a teacher in an incredibly poor school in Mexico took it upon himself to use a student centered pedagogical approach to teaching which resulted in many of his students leaping into the 99th percentile on national exams.

The story contrasts two extremes: mindless 19th Century inspired rote learning with dynamic engaging student-driven learning. The school doesn't have computers for the students. A roving ed tech instructor shows up holding placards with pictures of keyboards and 3.5" floppy disks. Not long after the teacher takes matters into his own hands, he has students figuring out how to solve complex math and science problems. Students that no one expected anything from proceed to blow away the competition. The plot line is rather predictable.

True, the story is engaging, as magazine articles need to be to maintain readership, and does a nice job of providing a glimpse of the innovative guts the teacher demonstrated. Without training or mentoring or any kind of outside assistance aside from the use of his home computer, he took a dive into turning conventional pedagogy on its head. It worked. One of his students in particular (whose photograph is on the cover of the issue) really excelled - she made the top score in the country on her standardized exams.

The article goes on to point out that the student's teacher received very little credit for his accomplishments. His students, in particular the girl who blew away the rest of the country academically, got the bulk of the attention. In fact, some of the region's administration dismissed the teacher's efforts entirely; one administrator is quoted as saying that teaching methods have little to do with how well students perform. Huh???? That in itself is incredibly annoying but by now the reader can see it coming.

At the end of the article (and here came the desire to whack my head on the nearest flat surface) I realized that the article missed a huge opportunity to rectify matters. It is a compelling story, but what are the take home messages? The casual reader could easily walk away with a variety of impressions about a brilliant girl, a lousy Mexican education system, a brave teacher, and the vague notion that student centered education sounds great. Or not great, depending upon your inclination.

But where are the take home messages that could take it to the next level for STEM education, and since this is Wired magazine, the messages about the digital economy and the need for innovative computing education? After all, they chose to put Steve Jobs name in the title. Then they did nothing with it.

I wish they had put the pieces together more clearly. What a lost opportunity to do more than tell a good story. Thud.

STEM, STEAM, Then What?

All the fields are here

The STEAM acronym has been nagging at me for some time. Just in case you aren't familiar with it, STEAM is short for Science Technology Engineering Arts Math. STEAM comes on the heels of STEM: Science Technology Engineering Math. Prior to STEM there was ST/M and other less linguistically smooth relatives.

These acronyms are everywhere in discussions of education. No doubt you have heard STEM a lot - it's hard not to have. You may or may not have heard of STEAM yet (you will) and perhaps you never heard of ST/M. ST/M isn't used much these days, having been supplanted by STEM.

Things (the acronyms) started when people were looking for easy ways to shorthand the content topics that needed greater emphasis in schools. Especially in the US, but in other countries as well. All sorts of wordy discussions were popping up about how to improve student learning in areas necessary for economically competitive citizenry living in highly competitive global economies. See what I mean? Wordy.

Most of you reading this know the ins and outs of these conversations and all the interesting directions they go. The Common Core State Standards, The Next Generation Science Standards, and hey, why is computer science not there anywhere? Because, just in case you didn't realize it, it's not. Computer Science is Noticeably Absent.

But back to those acronyms for a moment and some implications stemming out of how they are used in discussions of education reform. (yeah, ouch)

STEM : education reform with a focus on science, technology, engineering, and math. There has been increasing discussion of how to integrate these topics into all aspects of the curriculum. "Interdisciplinary" has taken on buzz-word status in some camps, but one can only hope that this means we are starting to recognize the need for more fluid boundaries in our exploration of the world. It is only in the past few hundred years that we have tried to isolate content matter so rigidly in order to perform controlled experimental studies. We have learned a lot (a LOT) from this approach, but we are often now crashing up against boundaries that require the addition of more holistic integrated perspectives.

STEAM - education reform that values the arts equally to the S T E and M and works to integrate them. Perhaps in part for purely practical reasons, advocates of STEAM appear to be working hard at integration as opposed to simply saying "hey we need Art too". Art is a harder sell in this day and age of economic imperatives and requests for "useful skills".

Pondering the seeming contrast of Art with the others, I realized there was just one more piece needed to find ourselves back to advocating a liberal arts educational foundation. Humanities. Right? In terms of providing a solid, critical thinking based, life long learning supportive education, we often include the need for broad distribution requirements that include Arts and Humanities. Wordy yet again. Hence the usefulness of an acronym. 

Funny how things might be coming full circle. If someone finds a way to effectively advocate for the Humanities, we will be acknowledging the need for a holistic, (hopefully) integrated education.

I'm wondering when someone is going to come up with an acronym that incorporates the H.

I've been playing with how to put in the H but so far I haven't found just the right fit.

HSTEAM     MEATSH    EATSHM    ATSEHM     I see a thematic basis in food (time of day?)
SHTEAM     MEATHS    EATHSM    ATHESM     throat clearing (reaction to allergens?)
STHEAM     MEAHTS    EAHMST    AHMEST     and lisping (sorry code buffs, not LISP)
STEHAM     MAHETS    AHEMTS    HEMATS     and,
STEAMH     HMAETS    MAEHTS    AEHMTS    Things (acronyms) are not looking promising.

What we need is to integrate computing into our acronym.

META-SHC

Rome wasn't built in a day; the Hoover Dam was built in 3 years. I think we're getting somewhere.

ICER Day 2 - Variables Are Hard to Grasp?

One thing I love about ICER is the format: it is designed for interaction. We don't just sit there, sliding progressively lower in our seats as the days go on, hoping for the next coffee break. We listen to a speaker and we discuss the talks and we have spirited Q & A sessions.There were quite a few radical ideas tossed out in today's presentations. In great part because the speakers were, for the most part, energetic and comfortable with uncertainty. I can't count how many times I heard something along the lines of "and these results [just presented] leave us with more questions than answers". At which point we all would happily leap into the discussion fray with each other and the presenter. And no one seemed to take offense, as I have seen in some other research conferences when presenters take themselves a bit too seriously.

Cognitive learning theories were at the heart of the first two talks and there was some radical stuff here. For example, in the first talk of the morning Linda Seiter spoke about her work with computational thinking and primary school students. Not high school, not middle school, but primary school. 2nd grade, 4th grade, 6th grade. We don't hear about research on computing in kids this young very often - not by computer scientists at least. That in itself made me sit up in my seat.

One of her fascinating results started with the discovery that kids have an easier time learning computational concepts that we take as given to be harder, and that kids have a much harder time with concepts we assume are easier and thus teach first. For example, multi-threading, blocking, and synchronization come much easier than variables. It turns out that the concept of variables is really really hard - it isn't a natural concept at all. Young kids just don't grasp variables. Whereas they do grasp those OS related terms I mentioned.

Hold that in your head and then add in this: Linda  also said that 8th graders have similar computational thinking skill abilities as the college students she teaches and they run into the same problems. So although there are periods of predictable cognitive leaps as kids develop (4th - 5th grade seems big) , in terms of skill acquisition ability in computational thinking, there doesn't appear to be much change between 8th grade and freshman year of college.

If that is the case, should we rethink our decades old accepted wisdom about what concepts we teach first and what is necessary as foundational? The work we were hearing about focused on K-12, but what about university computing curricula? We have been beating our heads on the wall for decades on some of the same CS1 and CS2 problems - what if, instead of continuing to rework, tweak, re-present the same basic set of introductory concepts in the hopes of getting them across better - what if instead we look at upending the entire curriculum and putting the so-called hard concepts first? What if many of these aren't really the conceptually hard concepts at all? Conversely, what if the stuff we think of as easy and fundamental gets pushed out much later? Junior year? Senior year?

Why, for example, do we teach variables right off the bat anyway? Because we always have? Because all the textbooks are written that way? Because everyone does it that way? Because they are obviously simpler concepts? Because this is so fundamental to our belief system that we don't question it? Because it would be scary as heck to throw it all out the window? We can come up with lots of reasons why this paradigm shift (as it most definitely is)would be impractical to try. But when have true paradigm shifts ever been comfortable or without large speed bumps along the way?

Here is one of my favorite quotes from this morning: 

"As a teacher you need to forget everything you know and think like a first grader". 

Although directed at teachers and researchers working with first graders, I think that it would be healthy for all of us to periodically think like a first grader. Before we have internalized so many fixed notions of how the world works, and, to quote back from yesterday's post, before we have developed Functional Fixations.

Suggestions to a School Considering External STEM

Prepackaged All-In-One Brain Food

I had an opportunity recently to do a little investigation into an organization that is selling its system of STEM learning to K-12 school systems. A friend of mine is the Principal of a K-8 public school that is looking at ways to beef up its technology offerings and STEM in general. I had a meeting with my friend and another of the school administrators to discuss their needs and to hear about a company that has been recommended to them.

I did my due diligence prior to the meeting and reviewed the Common Core State Standards, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and of course, the CSTA recommendations for computing in K-8. I also reviewed PARCC, and existing state standards in their state.

For those of you not intimately familiar with all of the above, here are a few items to set the context: The Common Core is sweeping the nation; most states are on board and at some stage of planning and implementation. The Common Core covers English/Language Arts (ELA) and Math. Science is not included, and technology merits a mere mention under "Media and Technology" where it is suggested that technology be integrated throughout as a support tool for other subjects. The NGSS covers science, but explicitly omits computing, suggesting that it belongs under math (for more details see my post on the K-12 Computing Hot Potato).

It was painful to look at the department of education's STEM guidelines web  pages in my friend's state. Practically nothing was there. Sparse would be putting it mildly. Especially compared to the finely detailed descriptions for other areas of study. Oddly enough, for Primary School the STEM listings indicate STEM as Physical Science, Math and Art (Art?). In Middle School it is the same with the addition of some mention of technology under Career Technical Education (CTE for short, and commonly known as vocational education).

Now it became clear to me why there was such an appeal to a slickly developed set of web pages promising to provide a full STEM curriculum, complete with detailed learning goals, class lectures, exercises, assessments, materials, and professional teacher training and support.

The selling organization knows how to do its PR. They use all the right lingo. I was intrigued. I was curious. Of course none of this comes free; there is a hefty price tag. Not necessarily unreasonable - after all, someone put in a lot of work developing this educational system. I sure wish we paid our teachers commensurately with the work they do! I decided to investigate further.

Once I got past the glossy print and graphics, I realized there were very few substantive details. Transparency was not the goal here. Not in the least deterred, I donned full archeological gear and went website digging. This was fun.

[dig...dig...dig...]

If you know what you are looking for you can glean some interesting things from such digging. You read the bios of the leadership team, and the board of directors. What is their educational background, professional education career experience, non-academic experience, affiliations, interests? What is the legal status of the organization? Who is likely to benefit from sales of this system? It's often all there if you look hard enough, in this case about 7 levels down the site tree.

What wasn't there were any examples of syllabi, curriculum, assessments, detailed learning goals. One has to buy their system, and ... here is the kicker: you have to commit to teaching their two base classes.

In the spirit of being open minded, I concede that the company wouldn't want to give away their methodology enough that someone else could scoop them.

It just felt a bit weird, considering all the brough-ha-ha about the need for transparency and accountability in public education.

All of which leads to fascinating speculation about the role and potential contribution from corporate education. Any given system and materials might be of high quality. On the other hand they might not.

What is a school, feeling perhaps left in the dust by the less than transparent maneuvers of their various state agencies and politicians, to do?

After sharing all the interesting specifics I learned about the company in question with my friend and her colleague, I recommended a few things:

- Ask the organization to supply their curricula for examination. The school could offer to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement. This happens all the time in industry, so although perhaps strange to a small school, it shouldn't come as a novel idea to the educational company. There is no reason I can think of why this offer shouldn't result in a "yes".

- If that fails to produce the desired result, and you are still determined to check out this curricula, track down some current users and interview them. In fact, I'd recommend doing that anyway. The organization should be more than willing to supply names as references. Ask those adopter schools the questions that matter to your school and see what they have to say. Also, ask them to share some of their curricular materials with you. Again, this is common, smart, strategy in the business world; same thing when interviewing for a job! Check out the company before you commit!

- One last thing. If, as in this case, the company requires you to commit to using a significant portion of their system, thus locking you in, ask to what extent the required curricular materials can be customized to fit your local situation. You don't want to be forced to teach in a way that conflicts with your mission, culture, students in any substantive way.

Wouldn't it be interesting to do an in-depth comparison of industrial K-8 educational models with traditional public education models? 

Professional Communication & Sustainability in the CS Curriculum?

You still have a few weeks left to comment on the Computer Science Curricula 2013 (CS2013) Strawman Draft (which can be found here). If you haven't looked at it yet and have any interest in providing input on the next stage of joint ACM/IEEE curricular recommendations now is the time. Sure, there will be another version (Ironman Draft) to comment on, but things are in their most formative stage right now and there are interesting items in the Social and Professional Practice Knowledge Area.

Technical Communication Snafu

Some of what you will find in this section include Professional Ethics, Intellectual Property, Privacy and Civil Liberties. Also included are two of my favorites, and not because some people have surprisingly strong opinions on them: Professional Communication (p. 169) and Sustainability (p. 170).

Professional Communication has to do with, well, you might guess: writing, making presentations, human to human interaction, and collaboration (for starters). Critical soft skills that employers often say are so important. In my former role as a faculty member and in my current participation on the ACM Education Council I have heard this need brought up so many times; it seems as if no one could possibly dispute the importance of including communication skills in curricular guidelines for any computing program. Nevertheless, the issue is more complex than at first seems because some people believe these particular skills do not belong in the computing curriculum at all; some people believe they should be taught outside computing departments; some people think they should be required and some people think they should be optional.

Sustainability. Oh la la (I still have one foot in France). When I was part of the ITiCSE 2008 Working Group on Sustainability and Computing, I learned firsthand how controversial this topic can be. The strength of the flames from some of my colleagues in computing education was enough to stand my hair on end as if I had sprayed it with tight-hold super gel. One anonymous survey respondent talked about not wanting to have sustainability shoved down his throat. With multiple exclamation points (!!!!!) and underlines. On the other hand, there were colleagues who practically hugged the working group members for "finally" bringing this topic into a serious discussion forum. Thank you, thank you, some said, for encouraging us to think about the environmental effects of our professional work.

Do you have an opinion about Professional Communication or Sustainability in the computer science curriculum? Yes, no, not sure... You have until September 15 to submit comments on any aspect of the Strawman Draft. If you have been meaning to do so and haven't, now is the time.

Social Computing Abounds at ACM Education Council Mtg.

It seemed that social issues in computing were popping up all over the place in the ACM Education Council meeting (see the last post for a first pass at sharing some of the meeting). This is no doubt a reflection of the tumultuous issues for computing education in general. Here are some additional, not-comprehensive, unusual items that jumped out at me during the meeting (which ended yesterday).

K-12 education is in the spotlight. It permeated many many of our discussions. If this is all new to you, here is something for you: check out these 2 contrasting spots recently aired by the PBS News Hour in the US - in the first spot, the Gates Foundation's latest push for more formalized teacher assessment, and in the second spot former Deputy Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch spoke about why she has changed her position on teacher accountability. Here is the surprise for me: I was told in a side conversation that the Gates Foundation does not address, nor have an interest in addressing, the issue of computing education in K-12.  

Why would Bill and Melinda Gates not be interested in supporting computing education in K-12? Puzzling, if true.

On the other hand, we learned more about recent exposure for the Computer Science Education Act, which is bringing much needed attention to computing in K-12. Go Team!

In the "arg!" department, someone suggested that undergraduate education is becoming commoditized and that the university brand is moving to graduate education. Once you start thinking about that notion, the implications are unpleasant (what would the term "college" mean?). This also gets back to the contentious question about whether or not students are "clients" (what is the purpose and function of a college instructor?).

Another view from a participant, heard while traveling on the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) was that online skills development is "education", and "training" is...well, I got lost at this point and couldn't quite figure out what my colleague was driving at.  I told you in the last post that there was difference of opinion as to the definition of "education" vs. "training"! Also heard on the BART: the purpose of undergraduate education should be skills development and any breadth acquired is secondary. There wasn't time to sort all this out, because shortly thereafter I had to hop off at my airport terminal (which turned out to be the wrong terminal, but that's another story).

How about some uplifting, if still somewhat controversial, ideas that came my way?

Social and professional issues (SPI) are becoming central to conversations of computing curricula. This is fantastic. I was in a subgroup discussing the Information Assurance and Security part of the Strawman Draft of CS2013 and the conversation about SPI inclusion was not whether it should be there or not (as in years past) nor whether SPI should be taught outside of computing departments (as in years past) but to what extent SPI curricular guidelines should be a separate section of  CS2013 cross referenced by IAS, vs. an included part of IAS.

(FYI, in case you haven't reviewed the Strawman Draft, there is an SPI section, and there are also inclusions of SPI items in the other content sections)

If you have an opinion on this or other computing curricular issues, the CS2013 Strawman Draft open comment period is open for a short while longer.

Finally, I learned something pretty cool. Guess what the iTiCSE best paper award went to last year? The recipient was "Beyond Good and Evil Impacts: Rethinking the Social Issues Components in Our Computing Curricula" by Randy Connolly. If you have access to the ACM Digital Library I highly recommend you read this paper. It is meaty, thought provoking, and extremely well written.

This is all great progress! Social and professional issues are becoming mainstream curricular conversation.

SIGCSE 2012 Thursday Report:Fred Brooks, Science Fiction and More

I'm here in Raleigh, North Carolina for the SIGCSE conference. Along with making appearances at a National Science Foundation showcase session on the COMTOR project, and helping run a Birds of a Feather session on the same project, I did my very best to visit as many interdisciplinary sessions as possible. There were too many to hit them all, especially as there were overlapping sessions and I haven't learned how to be two places at once yet - years of trying not withstanding. Here are some of my abbreviated observations and general thoughts on the conference today. This certainly isn't comprehensive.

The keynote speaker this morning was Fred Brooks, author of the famous "Mythical Man Month". He spoke about teaching as a design task and as a dynamic critiqued practice. He sprinkled his discussion with interesting historical notes. Perhaps my favorite was his reference to having learned to program, in 1952, in "octal absolute on the 701". Several of us in my row of seats began trying to guess what this referred to. 701 was probably the IBM 701. Octal absolute was a bit trickier. Some quick pondering suggested there was an Octal Absolute and an Octal Relative, and that Octal Absolute may have meant no assembler. I always loved that low level of dealing with the machine (I was about to say "of addressing the machine" :) ; fun to think about.

I attended a Special Session about the NSF funded Interdisciplinary Computing project that I participated in over the past year and reported on here. It was interesting to listen to the organizers (Boots Cassel and Ursula Wolz) present a recap of our progress and findings over the year and to then hear audience feedback. It was refreshing to hear spontaneous upbeat comments about how there are always people in other departments who are willing to work beyond traditional boundaries - we have to look for them. There were some useful comments about how to get started with obtaining funding in interdisciplinary computing before you have a track record. Part of this was addressed when one of the NSF program officers spoke briefly about the many program solicitations that are good fits for interdisicplinary work. Other suggestions, from the audience, included getting letters of support for your proposal/work from well known people who have a track record, and when appropriate, pairing with someone as a co Principle Investigator who has a track record. There was a fair amount of talk that started from the question of "is interdisciplinary computing scaleable?" and went in a several directions.

After lunch I boogied on over to hear a session on Science Fiction in Computer Science Education. I had to find out what all this was about and was it for real? It was. Several computing faculty described some very interesting ways they used sci-fi novels, books and movies as focus or starting point for deeper computing concepts. One faculty used an older story called "Maxon's Master" to launch into a series of discussions about algorithms, search algorithms in particular, AI and issues of cognition and robotics. Eventually a programming assignment materializes in a seemingly natural way. Other panelists used sci-fi literature and movies to get into virtual reality, virtual relationships, and the ubiquitous information stream and social capital. On of the writings she uses is "Super Sad True Love Story", a newer work. These were just two of the speakers in this session.

On a completely tangential side note, Michelle Obama is going to be in Raleigh tomorrow and staying at one of our conference hotels. Tomorrow is going to be interesting, as they are closing down portions of the streets, hotels, and the conference center. It would be nice if she dropped in for lunch but I'm not holding my breathe on that!

Artistic post to prevent you from driving your car up the sidewalk. Taken at night.

Can We Surf the Wave of Innovation Without Falling Off?

I am thinking about interdisciplinary computing and the innovation involved with pulling it off as akin to surfing (Southern California is growing on me). The people who cross traditional disciplinary boundaries to create interdisciplinary programs or projects tend to be innovators. They are also skilled surfers. This is especially true in academia where the institutional culture supports specialization within one discipline. It takes a certain amount of guts and a balancing act to propose, plan and carry out a synthesis of very different fields.

What makes a new program or project successful? Many interdisciplinary innovators are what I'd call "think outside the box" people. Or, as one person I know recently described himself and how he runs his business compared to many of his competitors, contrarians. Whatever your word choice, in my experience innovators have some serious personal drive and are less concerned with following the establishment than are non-innovators. Academic or corporate. At the same time they have to understand the establishment and be able to function successfully within it.

What is bothering me is an idea I am kicking around about the future of interdisciplinary computing in academia. I only just started reading The Innovator's Dilemma and am already wondering what it will take for academia not to fall prey to the problem outlined in this book. Sure, the book discusses the corporate world, but the idea that innovators can get so good at implementing their vision that they completely miss or refuse to see the next wave until it rolls over them and they drown, is completely relevant. It takes a long time to get a new academic program up and off the ground. When you have a great idea that may not be welcomed with open arms by the institution, you may have to develop tunnel vision to keep afloat.

All that work, all that expended political capital, all that time and sacrifice. Eventually an amazing interdisciplinary program is created and virtually everyone finally acknowledges just how great it is. Then the pressure, direct or indirect, self imposed or external: just keep doing what you are doing. Don't make any radical changes to what is working.

That terrible phrase "if it ain't broke don't fix it". A path to stagnation.

It was spotting the need for a radical change and making change happen that led to success. More radical changes will be needed in the future. The advance of computing technology makes it inevitable. Who will be watching for the next wave, the next incarnation of interdisciplinary computing while the initial creators are keeping it all together and running smoothly?

This concerns me. Innovators are by definition not in the majority. Interdisciplinary computing in academia requires insight, innovation, passion and dedication. Given competing demands and extended implementation times, there is a real possibility of running out of innovators. How does interdisciplinary computing development maintain an influx of new insight, new eyes, new energy? We need it, if for no other reason than to keep the original innovators from burning out or simply getting too tied up in day to day planning to catch that next wave.

Interdisciplinary Computing Meeting Number 2: Day 2, Part 1

The second (and final) day of our meeting was jam packed. I need a giant suitcase to contain all the notes I could write about our discussions. So... I'll start again with some of the items that jumped out at me from the day.

• Interdisciplinary need not be (as some have feared) a zero sum game. In fact, Interdisciplinary Computing (IC) can change the zero sum game (either you go into field X or field Y). With IC, one department does not lose students to another department ("student stealing"). Quite the opposite. Programs that implement IC programs, minors, (or the variety of forms I have discussed previously) often result in students having a foot in multiple departments. Depending upon how an institution calculates FTE  a student may be counted towards FTE in more than one department, thus giving "credit" to both departments - a good thing. (FTE = Full Time Equivalence, or to the layperson: a calculation of how many students are considered to be in class/department/division/school. FTE numbers often have a powerful effect on fund distribution, hiring etc.).

• Here is an interesting observation: look at the National Science Foundation Discoveries site. This is a site where the NSF highlights innovation; most of the featured projects are IC - computing and another science. 

• Big Science and Small Science. These terms were introduced and there was a bit of a discussion about what they mean and the implications. One table (I was not sitting there) later spent time discussing the topic in detail. But from the more general discussion, here is the gist I came away with. It started when someone posited the idea that computer science projects would more likely be "small science", i.e. local projects that produce a lot of data; "large science" (aka "long tail science") projects are large multi-institutional / multi-group / multi-person projects such as those conducted by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). The "problem" would be that larger projects are more likely to get large funding, and thus dissemination. What to do?

I'm not sure I totally buy this definition and the gloomy conclusion. There are certainly computing projects that obtain multi-million dollar funding - when I was working on my PhD some faculty I knew received that kind of funding. And even if we are talking smaller funding levels, I think multi-institutional grants of $500,000 or $1,000,000 are nothing to be sneezed at and can certainly produce results and wide dissemination. Those are available. I was recently one of several PIs on a grant in the first category. Sure it helps to be a government agency, but one does not have to be one in order to get your results "out there". You may have to work a little harder at dissemination, but there are channels. And in fact, sometimes, you know exactly who the groups are that have an interest in your type of work and can target them in a direct semi - personalized manner. And we haven't even mentioned the fact that Industry is working on IC projects and they have their own mechanisms for dissemination, sometimes working with academia, and other times going it alone.

But really, the question is: Why is "small" vs. "large" important for a discussion of IC? Our conversation turned to how small science (let's say 2 departments such as CS and History working together) can leverage large science. NASA, Historical Archives and a variety of organizations make large amounts of data publicly available; these data can be used and added to at the local level. Perceptions of both fields can be changed and information made available that otherwise might gather dust. Here is a great example: check out this project, which one of the meeting participants is working on: Digital Durham, a fascinating integration of computing and history.

Arg. I'm out of space (assuming the general protocol of not making a post tooooo long). To be continued...

IFF Computing == Cabbage

I am periodically asked "what is it like to write a book?" If you have written a book you may be having a small laugh to yourself all of a sudden. A sort of evil chuckle. Because you know, .... well, I don't need to tell you. It takes you over in strange and wonderful and unexpected ways.

You probably also know that no matter what you say it may not convince the conversant that conceiving cognitively comprehensible and convivial concepts takes considered concentration. Even if you say "it is Computer Science!" (people often assume fiction for reasons I know not why) there is ofttimes a clinging to the concept that you must spend much of your time continuously cavorting. Come again? If we waited to compose for when we felt suitably inspired by The Muse ... my Editor could conceivably consider calling out the Costa Nostra (uh, just kidding...right, Randi and John?)

Perhaps my more-often-than-usual far away look, prompted not by my new glasses so much as by a looming deadline, brings on the question with greater frequency lately. However, I find myself contemplating a different question: "How do you know when you are really and truly becoming one with interdisciplinary computing?" (with which topic my book most certainly is concerned).

I have the answer. It came to me this evening as I took a break and sat looking out over a neighborhood canyon just breathing calmly. Even in stillness, everywhere I looked I saw things that reminded me of a computer. "Canyon - how lovely...oh, Canyon starts with the same letter as Computer." "Critter poo on the sidewalk leading up to the bench....Critter reminds me of Computer". "I Cannot see the stars because there are Clouds in the sky. Clouds? Computer!" "Concentrate on your breathing ...Concentrate. Concentrate. Computer Computer Computer".

A Colleague gave me a red Cabbage from their garden. Oh my gosh that was good - a fresh Cabbage tastes like Candy Compared to Cabbage from the grocery store". Candy? Compared? More "C" words! Cabbage. Is an excellent source of Vitamin C and beta-Carotene. Consuming large amounts of Cabbage reduces the Chances of getting Colon Cancer because it Contains Chemicals that protect Cells against free radicals. All those words Commence with the same letter as COMPUTER! Perhaps I have passed the threshold and am now officially (Crazy?) Coalescing with interdisciplinary Computing and Computer science and Computational thinking.

The Cabbage Convinced me. Computers are truly everywhere. All you have to do is Consider it.

International Women's Day Spawns Important "Science Magazine" Post

I have a "new and different" blog post in the wings that I hope to post tomorrow - I am waiting for confirmation of some information I'm very excited about.

Meanwhile, I want to reference an interesting blog entry in the Science Careers Blog (part of Science Magazine online) posted yesterday as part of acknowledgment of International Women's Day.

The post discusses the significant positive improvement in retention of women when applied contexts, in particular real world social contexts are presented as an integral part of computer science coursework. Given that this is Science Magazine, there is more to the post than unsupported opinion and commentary. I quote a few lines:

" "The faculty initially did not think that the students who dropped out could hack it," Huang said. "But, on closer examination... they found that women had lost interest because they did not see what algorithms were good for or why they needed to learn how to design a variety of complicated algorithms." The faculty decided to focus the first session of the course on how algorithms may be used to help social causes. [my added emphasis]" Once this began, the retention rate for women increased so much so that now all professors spend the first class introducing their courses by discussing the applied relevance of the material that will be presented," she added. "I admit, I was really relieved to find that the women could hack it." "

(I wonder if there was an intended play on words there. Probably not.)

The post goes on to report that the male students did not respond in the same way. Interesting, however a very intelligent response followed:

"Assuming that men and women continue to have predominantly different interests in how their research is applied later in life, here's my thought: There are differences between individuals of the same gender of course, but couldn't women scientists use these differences to find a niche for themselves that their male colleagues may not necessarily have thought of? It is still difficult for women to work in male-dominated fields in many ways, but the culture has changed drastically in the last several decades and there is now more space for new ideas and individuality."

All I can say is YES. There is space. There will continue to be more space. I happen to think that there may have always been space for new ideas and individuality but that it was not sufficiently recognized or acknowledged or supported. I am so glad to see this recognition coming along. I am even more glad to see research in support of the notion that including social relevance in computing coursework is good for the computing field itself.

Computing faculty, what do you think in reaction to this?

Full Science Careers Blog Post: http://blogs.sciencemag.org/sciencecareers/2011/03/a-genderbiased.html

Back to Fundamentals: What IS Interdisciplinary Computing?

Yesterday over coffee I had one of those really stimulating conversations with an acquaintance who works in a large software company. The topic was interdisciplinary computing. With hindsight, I now see this as a prelude to a larger conversation on the same topic ("what IS interdisciplinary computing?") that I expect to have late next week with a larger group of people from academia and industry.

It wasn't long into our meeting before I was reminded of the very fundamental excitement and challenges that start with just trying to define the term and jump off from there.

Some questions we enthusiastically tangled with:

What IS interdisciplinary computing? Is it... computer science embedded in other fields (e.g. earthquake simulation) where the people involved may have CS or other backgrounds (e.g. earth science or physics)?

If yes, does this count as "applied computing" and not "true computer science" (whatever that means, and we followed that conversational path for a while).

Is interdisciplinary computing the embedding of computational thinking in another field? (please define computational thinking....everyone is using it these days, but a commonly accepted definition is elusive)

Is interdisciplinary computing the equality of a merge between two fields - and within the educational system does this mean within a university computing department...or a cooperative endeavor b/w two departments (communications/digital media and computing for example), or a formal merge of two or more departments?

How do you successfully connect with the arts and humanities? When you move away from other STEM disciplines the challenge in establishing effective communication and trust magnifies, but so do the wonderful possibilities. We ran with this topic for a while.

What about K-12? This is a topic we did not delve into too deeply this time, but it looms large.

What does all of the above have to say about the content of a degree program in computing? The never ending question about the first year of coursework ... most of you are probably quite familiar with this line of discussion. Programming, not programming, programming with a new twist or theme or application, ... how to show the ubiquity of computing in that first year in an engaging way, which is the time period when we lose most of the students we lose?

What does industry want in its graduates in terms of interdisciplinary computing skills - it depends who you ask. In some meetings of the ACM Education Council a while back, we invited panels of industry speakers to talk about what they are looking for in graduates. The answers were all over the map and were influenced by such factors as size (large corporation vs. smaller company), corporate and divisional focus (product development, research, technical marketing etc).

If ideally, a liberal education is supposed to teach students to think critically, how does one's interpretation of interdisciplinary computing, the competing demands of those who might hire your graduates, and enrollment concerns tie in with philosophical stance on a computing education?

Speaking of philosophical stance...the question came up at one point: should computing departments even exist? Ooooo. So many holes to fall into in tackling that question.

If yes...in what form? If no, what should happen instead?

We considered these and other questions until the remains of my latte were cold and the foam solidifying in my mug. I suspect we could have kept talking had each of us not had other things to take care of yesterday.

Periodically being brought back to the fundamental questions of "what is" and "what does it imply" are very important when considering implementing large scale change - as many of us are either doing or considering doing.

"You Can Do Whatever You Want, But You Can't"

That is what a high school student told me yesterday. I was sitting in a room speaking with a few of the students attending Coleman Tech Charter High School, which I first reported on last August. At that time, the walls were just up, the cables had only recently disappeared into the ceiling, and the technology infused curriculum was new and shiny and ready to be tested. Students were being recruited and excitement was in the air. Nearing the end of their first term, I decided it was time to see how things were going. So I made a visit to Coleman Tech and spent half a day watching class, speaking to Vice Principal Neil McCurdy ("Dr. McCurdy" to the students) and several of the teachers. And of course the students.

The consistent message I heard from everyone was that the school was special; it provided a personalization uncommon for a public school and everyone had a story to tell to prove it.

The student who made the statement above was summing up several stories about why he likes the school. He says that the teachers and administrators (who overlap, as the qualified administrators also teach) really are open to new ideas and suggestions and pay attention to what students have to say. He feels like a person, not a kid afloat in a mass of bodies. That is the "You can do whatever you want" part. Another student concurred, stating that the school she would have attended has a class size of 60. 60??? Not sure I believed I had heard correctly, I asked for confirmation and she said, yes, really, 60. Eek. This student, who had zero background in computing, is blossoming at Coleman Tech, taking among other things, Computing 2, and doing "extra things" at home with her laptop.

The "But you can't" referred to the way in which discipline and enforcement of respectful behavior are handled. One story, told by another student, illustrates this point. This student felt bullied by a classmate. In that student's old school, said the student, the approach to dealing with the situation would have been for the teacher to make a public display of disciplining the student. Here at Coleman Tech, the student related, nothing happened that instant (note that the situation was not endangering in any way) but over the next few days the perpetrator began to act increasingly respectful. So, the student inferred, something had occurred outside of class. The long term effect was that the student relating the story felt more comfortable and a "scene" had been avoided.

Beyond agreeing with the student's assessment that someone had spoken to the misbehaving student outside of class, I also inferred that one of the reasons that this approach was successful over the long term was because the perpetrator had not been publicly humiliated, which can lead to increased behavioral problems and possible retaliation in other settings. The student who felt threatened was not forced to deal with whatever his peers thought of him - which in high school is a very big deal.

Coleman Tech Charter School has attracted students from all over the region. Some students come from "North County" which is outside of San Diego city proper, whereas other students come from inner city areas in the heart of San Diego. The students are a good representative of San Diego: multi-racial, economically diverse, and, close to 50-50 gender split (the girls slightly outnumber the boys in this tech high school!). I watched an incident unfold that demonstrated another way that Coleman Tech is unique and personal. Everyone, students and teachers, eat lunch together in one large room. At one point an altercation almost broke out and Neil McCurdy, as Vice Principal, stepped in. It turned out that one student came from a background where the response to a perceived provocation was to become overtly aggressive. The other student, from a different background, felt that increased provocation was appropriate. When Neil stepped in, it became an opportunity not only to enforce discipline, but to discuss why each student's approach was not going to get the student what they wanted. Nearby students also heard the discussion. Neil told me later that part of what they try to do at Coleman Tech is consciously teach students about cultural differences among each other and to learn how to successfully interact with people from different backgrounds.

Ok...where is the computing? Everywhere. Every student, as promised, has their own laptop and every class uses the interactive white boards. One teacher in a non math/science discipline at first told me that he didn't really use technology in his class, but moments later was describing how the final project for his class was to create a digital movie! In addition, every 9th grader (approximately age 14) must take Computing 1, which is a programming based class using, guess what, Alice (the same system used in the APCS Principles class that I have been following all fall). There is also Computing 2, 3, 4 and 5. Currently two sections of Computing 2 are running and students are focusing on 3D graphics and animation although when I sat in, one section was discussing how the internet works at the level of IP addresses, packets and routing. Students were fascinated to see live, via a "ping" that a message sent from their school to UCSD a few miles up the road, was routed through Los Angeles. It made for fascinating conversation.

The other section of Computing 2 was engaged in analysis and debate of the WikiLeaks controversy - one group was "the western nations" and the other was WikiLeaks; they each had to decide what technical measures they would take to both attack the opposition and defend themselves. Although the ideas started off with some (to be expected) adolescent suggestions such as bribing North Korea to nuke the United States and its allies, the conversation began to become more serious as the students realized the serious flaws in this kind of argument. Unfortunately class ended just as things started to get really interesting and I wasn't able to hear how it all turned out - or rather will turn out, as this will be a multi-day exercise. I noticed that even amid the joyful chaos of a group of 9th and 10th graders throwing out ideas at random, students were constantly experiencing the "lightbulb effect". I saw several students, girls and boys, saying things like "oh! could that actually happen to my program?" "does the internet really work that way?" "you mean that they can do THAT to my computer???". Minds were engaged.

Material for Thought on Interdisciplinary Work in Academia

There is an interesting interview/commentary in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the constraints faced by academia in instituting true interdisciplinary teaching and research. This article should be viewable even without a subscription. Here is a sample from it (full link at bottom):

"Even interdisciplinary work relies on the concept of disciplines, and when it relates to teaching, it usually involves pulling together two professors from different departments to teach a single course. Each brings their own disciplinary expertise to bear on the subject, while respecting the boundaries of their colleague’s discipline. This seems like more of a disciplinary constraint than an administrative one.

However, when we go beyond the level of a course, we are talking about a more serious institutional investment. At the end of the day, I have to present a balanced budget to my dean or provost, and if I add another program — particularly one that will not pay for itself — I need to show that I have made cuts elsewhere. The easiest place to make these cuts is in the interdisciplinary faculty member’s “home” department, particularly when this balancing is done at the dean’s-office level. That creates hostility within the department and further resentment of a faculty member who may already be at the margins. For a junior faculty member, this means angering the senior folks who will be voting on their tenure case. Most assistant professors I know are not willing to take that risk."

Link to article: http://chronicle.com/blogs/old-new/the-constraints-of-interdisciplinarity/66