freewill@nstar.rn.com (Bill Williston) (04/10/91)
As educators, we are constantly in a self-evaluaton process. As a
secondary educator, society has evaluated us and is demanding change.
The first reaction was to fire all the teachers, at least make them take
competency tests. Now the push, in Michigan, is on school improvement
through site-based decision making. The high school principal
where I am employed wants us (teachers) to put in writing what a grad
should know in each department. I am in the process of writing the goals
for computer skills.
Most comp.ed readers are from 'higher' education. You need to tell me
what computer skills you would like to see college bringing to your
campus. Adequate preparation for college, business and industry is our
goal. The idea being that high school meets the demands for college
and the workplace, junior high school meets the needs of high school and
elementary meets the needs of junior high. Currently, we are all doing
the best that we can with the students preparation where each level of
education is unaware of the readiness needs at the next. This is not
working.
Having read the intro I hope you might be prepared to respond to
one of the following queries.
1. What computer skills are required for freshman CS majors?
2. What computer skills are required for freshman engineers?
3. What computer skills are required for business freshmen?
4. What computer skills are required for freshmen in general?
I value your responses and will gladly email summaries to all interested
parties. Thanks in advance.
--
Bill Williston NSTAR conferencing site 219-289-0287
internet: freewill@nstar.rn.com 1300 newsgroups - 8 inbound lines
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--- backbone news & mail feeds available - contact larry@nstar.rn.com ---hcc@candy.cs.olemiss.edu (Conrad Cunningham) (04/10/91)
>From: freewill@nstar.rn.com (Bill Williston) > 1. What computer skills are required for freshman CS majors? This isn't the kind of specific response requested, but I'd like to comment, in general, on what "skills" I would consider as desirable for high school graduates planning to "major" in "computing" at the college level. I am addressing the situation of American students entering American colleges. (a) strong pre-calculus mathematics skills (perhaps a little more study of "discrete math" than is the norm for high school, i.e., elementary ideas in symbolic logic, combinatorics, probability, etc.) Students need to be proficient in analyzing problems and recasting them into mathematical frameworks and notation, i.e., WORD PROBLEMS. Students also need to be taught mathematical "problem solving techniques" (e.g., heuristics like in Polya's _How_to_Solve_It_), not just dry, "plug-and-grind" symbol manipulation. Knowledge of calculus would be a plus, but, in my mind, not essential. (b) mastery of the English language. Students need a large vocabulary. They should be able to read both technical and non-technical texts with understanding. They should be able to speak and write English with clarity, precision, and correctness (e.g., word choice, grammar, and spelling). Knowledge of and skill in other (natural) languages would be a plus. (c) a good general background in the natural sciences, history, geography, humanities, and social studies. (d) familiarity with computers as problem-solving tools. The students should neither fear nor be in awe of computers. They should be skilled in the use of keyboards, mice, displays, diskettes, etc. They should have had experience with the use of various application/educational programs useful to students, e.g., word-processing, graphics, and mathematical packages. Programming is a plus IF TAUGHT WELL, but is a big minus if taught poorly. I think these same skills would also be important for freshmen in any field--particularly in mathematics, natural sciences, engineering, or business. The traditional college preparatory curriculum--where computers have been integrated as problem solving tools across the curriculum--isn't far from what I'd like to see. Unfortunately, the skills of many of our incoming students don't seem very strong in these traditional areas. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- H. Conrad Cunningham | Dept. of Computer & Info. Sci., Univ. of Mississippi Tel: (601) 232-5358 | 302 Weir Hall, University, MS 38677 U.S.A. Fax: (601) 232-7010 | Email: cunningham@cs.olemiss.edu -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- H. Conrad Cunningham | Dept. of Computer & Info. Sci., Univ. of Mississippi Tel: (601) 232-5358 | 302 Weir Hall, University, MS 38677 U.S.A. Fax: (601) 232-7010 | Email: cunningham@cs.olemiss.edu
manis@cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis) (04/10/91)
In article <ZDs6Z1w161w@nstar.rn.com> freewill@nstar.rn.com (Bill Williston) writes: > 1. What computer skills are required for freshman CS majors? I'm posting, rather than replying, because I want to raise some issues which go beyond Bill's question. 1) I heartily disapprove of the concept of `first-year [anything] majors'. I'm constantly amazed at the number of students who arrive at our university with a detailed educational plan, only to change it completely after a year or so. Accordingly, secondary schools ought to concentrate upon giving a student breadth, so that s/he knows enough about the various fields of human endeavour to be able to choose electives (and even a minor) intelligently. 2) Many of our students lack study skills. Many are even non-readers. (They're not illiterates; they can read perfectly well, but choose not to. This is not a serious disability in the `real world:' back when Reagan was President, an article in the NY Times pointed to the number of non-readers who had become heads of government in their countries.) If I could point to the subjects which I think best prepare students to do CS, I would choose mathematics and English. English is important not just because CS students need to be able to read and write, but also because the analytical and synthetic skills needed to be able to write an essay turn out to be analogous (not identical!) to those needed for programming and problem-solving proficiency. 3) As for specific skills, I'd tend to say that programming skills aren't really that interesting to us (we don't have labs full of PC's, so whether a student can make Turbo Pascal do weird things is, er, academic). General computer skills are certainly useful: knowing how to operate a word processor proficiently is certainly a strong advantage at the beginning. Problem-solving skills are also useful: the kind of analysis needed to set up a data base is similar to that needed to solve a programming problem. Back to my original point: good as it is to know what sort of computer skills a university might expect of incoming students, it's even better to know, I think, that what universities really need are students who are intellectually prepared for academic work. -- \ Vincent Manis <manis@cs.ubc.ca> "There is no law that vulgarity and \ Department of Computer Science literary excellence cannot coexist." /\ University of British Columbia -- A. Trevor Hodge / \ Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1W5 (604) 228-2394
hcc@candy.cs.olemiss.edu (Conrad Cunningham) (04/11/91)
In article <1991Apr10.164652.1726@cs.ubc.ca> manis@cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis) writes: >1) I heartily disapprove of the concept of `first-year [anything] >majors'. I'm constantly amazed at the number of students who arrive at >our university with a detailed educational plan, only to change it >completely after a year or so. Accordingly, secondary schools ought to >concentrate upon giving a student breadth, so that s/he knows enough >about the various fields of human endeavour to be able to choose >electives (and even a minor) intelligently. I agree with the suggestion of disallowing first-year majors--in theory at least. However, in practice, in fields such as CS, engineering, mathematics, or the physical sciences, it is difficult for a student to graduate in four years if he/she doesn't begin the sequence as a first-year student. Curricula in such fields tend to have relatively long prerequisite chains. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- H. Conrad Cunningham | Dept. of Computer & Info. Sci., Univ. of Mississippi Tel: (601) 232-5358 | 302 Weir Hall, University, MS 38677 U.S.A. Fax: (601) 232-7010 | Email: cunningham@cs.olemiss.edu