Vviewpoints
DOI: 10.1145/1897816.1897831
education
From science
to engineering
Exploring the dual nature of computing education research.
A series oF recent reports claim the U.S. education system is in a very severe crisis; others suggest the crisis is “overblown.”
On the one hand, the National Academies released a report “Rising Above
the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5,” 6 which
argued that the U.S. economy is at risk
because innovation will suffer due to
poor-quality science education. The
President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) stated in
its report “Prepare and Inspire: K– 12
Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) for America’s Future” 8 that there are “troubling
signs” about U.S. STEM education. In
particular, the Council of Advisors’
report called out the importance of
knowing about computing, for example, they say “a basic understanding of
technology and engineering is important if our children are to contribute
to and compete in a rapidly changing
society and an increasingly interconnected global community.”
OFFICIAL WHI TE HOUSE PHOTO BY PE TE SOUZA
On the other hand, an essay from
Nicholas Lemann in a recent issue of
The New Yorker referred to the crisis in
American education as “overblown.” 3
Lemann points out that the American system of mass higher education
is “one of the great achievements of
American democracy.” In September, a
New York Times article pointed to rising
unemployment in the technology sector, suggesting that maybe we have too
many computing graduates. 7
President Barack obama meeting with the President’s council of Advisors on science and
technology (PcAst).
All of these reports might be right.
An explanation that satisfies all these
claims is that we are educating large
numbers of students, as Lemann suggests, but not well enough to address
the needs described in the National
Academies and PCAST reports. The
unemployed technology workers described by the New York Times may not
have the right skills or knowledge to
get the jobs that will fuel innovation.
Computing education research has
a role to play here. If these reports are
right, we need to produce more gradu-
ates with a higher level of knowledge
and skill. Computing education re-
search can help us figure out where the
shortcomings are in the U.S. education
system, and how to address them.
the sorry state of cs1
The introductory course in computer
science in higher education is often referred to as “CS1” from early ACM and
IEEE curriculum volumes. One of the
first efforts to measure performance in
