[Haskell & FP in Education] Welcome and introductions

[Mark Lewis]

I wanted to address Stu's last comment. We've been using Scala at Trinity
for CS1 since 2010, and even before that, we didn't use the language used
for the AP exam. Using an "uncommon language" for CS1 (
https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2839509.2844666) has a number of
benefits. Leveling the playing field is a big one. Using a functional
approach also really helps because it is inevitable that the students who
have codded before did it in an imperative language.

At Trinity, we have taken the additional step of having a special
"advanced" section for students with significant background, following the
model at Harvey Mudd. The primary goal of this is to get those students
away from the ones who haven't done much before, so they don't scare them
off. I teach that "advanced" section and like to push students to use a
more functional style, while my colleagues, who are teaching primarily
students who have never coded before, use a more imperative style. I think
that there could be an interesting discussion of the merits of this, but it
definitely has the advantage that we can all teach the same language and
end in the same place for CS2 while giving the advanced section more of a
challenge in terms of exposing them to things they don't already know.

Mark

On Wed, Dec 19, 2018 at 3:50 PM Stuart A. Kurtz <stuart at cs.uchicago.edu>
wrote:

> Dear Fernando,
>
> > I think one of the problems in introducing CS education in K-12 is the
> lack of a clear widespread rationale for it.
>
> You've enumerated a few rationales.
>
> My wife is a recently retired 4th grade teacher, who's taught both Logo
> and Scratch over three decades in the classroom. There's a legitimate case
> for covering material like this, based both on developing problem solving
> abilities and on the observation that some students learn better via
> manipulatives. Code is a mathematical manipulative. These are not small
> effects. In the best cases, programming can become a vehicle for
> collaborative mathematical work, a category that otherwise hardly exists.
>
> But it's clear to me that there are other drivers as well. My take on this
> is US-centric, other polities may have other drivers.
>
> School boards are elected, and so are responsive to parental pressure. In
> the US, this often takes the form of demand for courses and activities that
> make students more competitive for highly-compensated work. This pressure
> can be particularly acute in well-resourced school districts, whose
> students will be competing for admission to selective college and
> universities. For the students I see, this means that their exposure to
> computer programming at the pre-collegiate level rarely came at the cost
> other activities. They've had four years of math, including calculus, art
> and band, and the opportunity to compete in debate, and not gymnastics, and
> perhaps even fencing if they've wanted too. They haven't had to give up the
> main course to get dessert. They haven't even had to give up other desserts.
>
> School budgets get built out of multiple parts that are carefully kept
> unblended. There's a certain pot of money labelled for faculty salaries,
> another pot labeled for capital expenses, another pot for special
> education, another for technology. Educators and technology companies alike
> have argued for technology in the classroom, and programming courses are
> one way to use this technology productively. Unfortunately, the use of
> semi-proprietary languages via plush IDEs can result in early obsolescence,
> driving the need for more purchases and a bigger piece of the pie going to
> technology. Of course, the ability to use technology effectively depends
> very much on the teaching staff, and well-resourced schools are more likely
> to have the staff with the knowledge and initiative to use technology
> effectively in the classroom. Wealth tenures wealth.
>
> As a university faculty member in the US, I see high-school programming,
> perhaps especially when it is done well, as a sustainer of inequality. It's
> hard to get into CS programs, and high school exposure to programming is
> highly corollated with success in bottleneck college programming classes.
> This is something that I've thought hard about, but my answer (teaching
> Haskell) I know to be idiosyncratic. It concerns me that, while it appears
> to have greatly reduced disparities based on prior preparation (and so has
> some utility in dealing with US issues around race/ethnicity), it may have
> increased gender inequity. None of this is easy if you take it seriously.
>
> Peace,
>
> Stu
>
> _______________________________________________
> Education mailing list
> Education at haskell.org
> https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/education
>


-- 

----------------------------------
Dr. Mark C. Lewis

Professor

Department of Computer Science

One Trinity Place

Trinity University

San Antonio, TX 78212-7200

mlewis at trinity.eduhttp://www.cs.trinity.edu/~mlewis/http://www.programmingusingscala.net/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEvjiWkK2BoIH819T-buioQ


----------------------------------
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.haskell.org/pipermail/education/attachments/20181220/d094d538/attachment.html>