Broadening Participation in Computing by Moving Away from Computer Science: Information, Arts, Humanities, and Sciences offer better models for #CSforAll
June 15, 2023 at 8:00 am 11 comments
In April, I gave a talk at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software and Societal Systems Department (S3D) “Broadening Participation in Computing by Moving Away from Computer Science” — slides available here, and video available here.
The argument I’m making is that computer science as a field has become more narrow over time. I wrote a CACM Blog Post last month where I provided several definitions of computer science: “Education is always changing: We need to define CS to keep the good stuff.” The earliest definitions of computer science described it as something to be taught to everyone, a critical literacy for 21st century citizenry, and touching on many different aspects of modern life. (I tell the story of those early definitions in this blog post.) More modern computer science definitions are much more narrow.
Computer science departments perform a critical function. They produce software professionals. Our society needs those. But that’s not the only societal need for computing education. CS departments also perform a gatekeeping function so that they can certify their graduates as ready for professional programming. If we want “Computing Education for All” with alternative endpoints, we need less of that.
During the pandemic, I worked with a Computing Education Task Force at my University to discover what kinds of computing education was currently available (see that story here and our final report here) across the campus. There’s a lot, even outside of CS. Arts teaches wonderful courses on expression with computing. Sciences teach how to discover with computing. Humanities reflects on the role of computing in society and critiques our digital and computational systems. Our School of Information teaches similar introductory computing courses to what we offer in CS, but with a focus on data science, user experience, and impact on society.
I suggest in my talk that new initiatives like our Program in Computing for the Arts and Sciences in University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) is more likely to invent computing education for everyone than will CS departments. The first half of my talk is about the history of computing education and about the narrowing of definitions (for which I use the U-M CSE standard slide templates), and the second half (for which I use the U-M LSA standard slide templates) is about PCAS, our new courses, and how this serves to broaden access to and participation in computing education.
Let’s think about how we could broaden our goals beyond CS departments and CS majors in K-12 education. Advanced Placement CS A and CS Principles are tightly tied to CS curriculum. What would it look like to create Advanced Placement exams for other needs for computing education? For example, what would an AP in Computational Science look like? What would it mean to value alternative endpoints in “Computing Education for All”?
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Computing Ed Research - Guzdial's Take 
1.
kmoch | June 15, 2023 at 8:19 am
Absolutely agreed in all ways. In my own little way I’ve been pounding on this for years. You explain it so well. Thank you, Mark!
2.
Bob Gotwals | June 15, 2023 at 8:21 am
At the North Carolina School of Science and Math, we have nine courses in the computational sciences, including: Introduction to Computational Science, Data Science for Scientists, Computational Biology/Bioinformatics, Computational Chemistry, Computational Physics, Computational Medicinal Chemistry, Scientific Programming, Digital Humanities, and two research courses (one a semester course, and the other a full-year course). All of these offerings are full semester programs, not just integrations into existing courses.
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bkm | June 15, 2023 at 8:34 am
For at least 20 years, K12 and colleges have taught digital skills courses that focused on the use of computer-based tools to get things done. My kids were required to take this type of class in middle school, which was not so much about standard tools like Word(most kids already knew that ) but on computer based tools that helped them find and organize information, and present it graphically. In high school, art classes frequently had digital components. My son did a digital art project for AP Art. Math and statistics courses have used computer based tools – Matlab, R, etc in undergrad courses. Even back in the 80’s, when I took Stats, we had to learn to use SPSS. Use of spreadsheets is widespread in business and economics courses. Schools and universities have been successfully integrating computing into a wide range of specialties for a very long time now.
4.
Mark Guzdial | June 15, 2023 at 12:10 pm
Hi Bonnie — I spent a bunch of time working with a task force here at Michigan looking in detail at how computing was being used across liberal arts and sciences here (see our task force report here: https://drive.google.com/file/u/1/d/19reUuUFuZ3C4WvSUtJn3SZanklXlaYaI/view). Yes, there is a lot of computing integrated into a bunch of arts and sciences classes (over 200 here at UMich). But it’s a complicated picture:
– In many of the classes, the faculty don’t teach about or with computing. They make assignments requiring computing, and all the teaching about computing and use of computing is run by graduate student instructors in labs. That doesn’t mean that the education is bad, but it sends a message that computing is something peripheral, not that important.
– Little of the computing in arts and sciences involves programming — R, Python, SPSS, and MATLAB are rare.
– Half of LSA students take any coding at all, and <20% take a second course. Our employers say that UMich students don’t even know Excel well, because the use of computing is not well-distributed across students.
But all of that said, my point is the other way around. High school CS models itself off of CS classes and CS departments. I was involved in creating AP CS Principles. The people in the room from higher ed were all from CS — not natural or social sciences, not arts or humanities. Should we design high school composition classes based on the practices of Journalism school? Not everybody is going to grow up to be a journalist, but everyone need to know how to write. K-12 CS should be less focussed on higher-ed CS as the model.
5.
Mike Zamansky | June 15, 2023 at 9:55 am
All well said except I have one quibble at the end. We should not be pushing for more AP Exams – exams are not educational experiences and AP and the College Board is at the very best problematic and as I’m sure you know, in my opinion, a lot worse.
We want units and courses – actual education – not single exams dictated by non-educators with private interests.
AP is frequently the easy way out but it’s not needed – look at Boostrapworld – they’ve made strong inroads into algebra classes without the backing of the college board.
6.
bkm | June 15, 2023 at 3:20 pm
“– Little of the computing in arts and sciences involves programming”
Insisting that computing in the arts and sciences must involve programming is very CS-centric. Perhaps computing in arts and sciences doesn’t involve programming because they don’t need to. They have sufficiently powerful tools to do the tasks without programming, or perhaps with a bit of scripting.
7.
Mark Guzdial | June 15, 2023 at 3:42 pm
What I teach in these classes (https://lsa.umich.edu/computingfor/curriculum.html) was defined by my advisors across liberal arts and sciences in a participatory design process. Not all of their students need programming. I’m teaching the programming that arts and humanities faculty want for their students.
8.
Gary Stager | July 1, 2023 at 2:41 am
Mark,
How is this and “teaspoon languages” different from the approach of Logo, beginning with “Twenty Things to Do with a Computer,” through the work I was involved with in programming across the curriculum in school 1:1 environments?
9.
Mark Guzdial | July 1, 2023 at 11:27 am
Hi Gary,
Not a lot different. In some ways, teaspoon languages are just lowering the curb further. Students can program in our teaspoon languages without thinking about naming, or parameters, or variables. I’m a Logo fan, as you know, but there are things that you have to learn before you can use a Logo microworld. With teaspoon languages, we’re reducing that friction. The cost is that you can’t do as much. A Logo microworld could always be extended with the rest of Logo. But that’s okay. The teaspoon language is scaffolding.
I’m presenting two papers at ITiCSE in a couple weeks on how we’re using teaspoon languages in our classes. I’m dealing with older students, undergraduates at the University of Michigan. I was surprised to learn that most of the students in our first semester of our classes had already tried to learn programming — and failed. So, they come into class with these negative impressions — that programming is hard, and that they can’t do it. A teaspoon language gives them an early success, and then we leverage that into Snap and later Python.
Mark
10.
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