9 ms·

Top Myths About Teaching Computer Science (2015)

68 points by wallflower 11y ago

minionslave 11y ago
I wanna smoke whatever that web designer was smoking.
- hutzlibu 11y ago
  I don't. Grey on white ... and no(!) margin left. sigh
Jemmeh 11y ago
#2 is off. The article says "the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that we don't need many more software developers" but the link provided (https://computinged.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/we-need-to-produce-far-more-software-developers-than-programmers-how-do-we-change/ https://computinged.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/we-need-to-prod...) says we need loads of software developers, but not as many programmers. From reading the BLS descriptions and some discussions on the programmers stack exchange I'd say programmers as far as the way BLS describes it are essentially intern/entry level software devs. They need someone else to give them direction. http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/4951/what-are-the-key-differences-between-software-engineers-and-programmers http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/4951/what-are...
CM30 11y ago
It's an interesting set of points, but damn, this article is really difficult to read. The light text colour and the tiny font size means I had to basically squint at the screen to make out most of it.
- stephenhuey 11y ago
  That's because the mobile link was submitted. If you're on a desktop then remove the m. subdomain prefix to go here: http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/189498-top-10-myths-about-teaching-computer-science/fulltext http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/189498-top-10-myths-abou...
  - littletinman 11y ago
    1000 times better! My eyes stopped bleeding!
  - CM30 11y ago
    Huh, I keep getting redirected to the mobile version on a desktop. Guess it must have something to do with uBlock Orign or something.
    - quentusrex 11y ago
      This is the link you want: http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/189498-top-10-myths-about-teaching-computer-science/fulltext?mobile=false http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/189498-top-10-myths-abou...
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - reviseddamage 11y ago
        ^ the hero we deserve
  - seangrogg 11y ago
    Thank you!
- anonyfox 11y ago
  You should try the reading-mode button in safari/firefox. Pretty much the very first thing I do on any article before I start reading.
- indubitably 11y ago
  I routinely drop into the console and say document.body.style.margin = '20%' on disastrous layouts like this.
Bluestrike2 11y ago
Very interesting. The gender data for AP tests in particular, as it seems to suggest that there's a strong self-selection bias at work years before people start applying for tech jobs. Identifying the reasons behind that and persuading otherwise seems like a particularly important area for women in tech groups to focus on.
- vonmoltke 11y ago
  The only issue I have with the AP data is that it is so sparse. Based on the circle-sizing on that graph, the number of samples is tiny compared to the other subjects, and there is a definite bias for the outliers in both directions to be the tests with the fewest samples, while the tests with the most samples tend to converge on the parity line. My understanding is that AP computer science is basically on life support right now and may be dead entirely within the next few years. It is probably a poor metric for measuring early interest in computer science.
  - jaykru 11y ago
    I'm a high school student taking AP CS right now. At least anecdotally, the main problems with the program are curriculum related and instructor related. The curriculum sadly is very fine-tuned to an obscure Java-dialect created specifically for the course. Though the program does teach basic principals of CS, there's a great deal of time wasted on this weird little platform; obviously, most high school students these days with technical inclinations would rather learn more open and directly applicable platforms to learn. The even greater problem though stems from the instruction, which I would argue is derived from the aim of the course itself. There's a very heavy focus on teaching to the test, as in the AP system teachers are rewarded for having high-scoring students. This means there's a lot of bland dissemination of facts and non-trivial projects are few and far between. Overall, as someone who plans to have a career in software, I've been really disappointed with the program. Supposedly there is a program launching in fall 2016 however: https://advancesinap.collegeboard.org/stem/computer-science-principles https://advancesinap.collegeboard.org/stem/computer-science-...
    - 11y ago
pbhjpbhj 11y ago
>If you think that some students just aren't "wired" to program, you as a teacher are unlikely to do as much to help them learn. // So, is true but you mustn't think it? Or you have to pretend it's not? I don't think their conclusion necessarily follows either, seems a possible outcome but some teaching is all about enabling the least "gifted" (and this can tend to fail at stretching those who appear to have a natural propensity). Of there really no genetic element to intelligence?
- juliendorra 11y ago
  There is obviously inherited factors for all basic cognitive abilities. Humans varies. But cultural factors, bias, training is what start to have impact at birth, what we can leverage. The scientific consensus seems to be that culture/education/context/opportunity is the major factor when concerned with two standard persons (average cognitive abilities at birth). I didn't personally read any cognitive science studies that validated the existence of some people having superior cognitive powers. It appears to be quite grouped at the center, with outliers with very specific talents ("savants"). So let's use the Ockham razor and go for the most likely explanation when learners struggle with any subject: they are not given the right learning process. It has most probably nothing to do with how their brain is wired, because statically, it is most probably very similar to any other brain picked randomly. (As is our genetic code apparently. Two random humans on earth have a very closely similar genetic code, more than was expected at first). For example I have a deplorable sequential memory: I can't really well memorize songs or karate katas. I blame my total lack of musical and dance education. I never really trained for memorizing sequences… Of course I could point to some innate genetic flaw, but this seems like a less likely explanation given what we know about the brain plasticity.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    I didn't get much musical training either, but I used to keep myself entertained by replaying entire albums in my head while walking to school. (Probably not very accurately - but still.) So I think this is very much about how the brain is wired. There's a level beyond which it absolutely isn't learned, either in ability or - more critically - of interest. Compare with dance, where I had similar problems with memorising moves until I did an extended weekend immersion and broke my brain for a few days. It got easier after that, but I'm still at the slower end of any class. I'd guess a lot of people on HN have always had a deep fascination with technology. If you have that kind of draw to a subject, you're not going to be stopped by parental disapproval or negative messages from teachers. Negative messages will make it harder, and lack of resources will certainly kill you more than anything else will. But the interest has to be there in the first place - not in a "I guess that might be kind of interesting" way, but in the "If I don't do this I'm going to be really fucking unhappy" way.
mucker 11y ago
Ah the Nordic Self-Selection Paradox showing up in AP studies. Not shocking. Notice too that the writer is not horrified that men don't want to join AP Art History or AP Psychology.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  There is an argument to be made that the asymmetry in art history should be resolved by having fewer women study it rather than more men.
  - over 11y ago
    What's the argument?
JoeCoder_ 11y ago
> to get more women in CS As a single male I admit it would be nice if there were more women in CS, but ultimately why does it really matter? Men and women are interested in different things and most women I know just aren't very interested in CS. Is there also a push to get more men into French language culture or studio art drawing? Even though most men would find it boring.
- hackuser 11y ago
  > most women I know just aren't very interested in CS That makes an assumption about their motivation. Much evidence exists that women aren't "interested" becuase they face exclusion and discrimination in CS and pressure to study more 'feminine" subjects. Why do more women take the Statistics AP exam than men? Also, I think there are now more female math majors in colleges than male (but I don't have the data in front of me). The same arguments were used, AFAIK, when women were exluded from most of the workforce and from much of higher education: Women just aren't interested in those things. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, first in her class at Columbia Law School, couldn't get a job at top law firms (and Justice Frankfurter turned her down because of her gender, per Wikipedia) at the beginning of her legal career. Now the majority of law school graduates are female - I guess they were interested after all. But perhaps most telling is that we are talking about women in the third person - this is exactly the problem with a lack of diversity: A bunch of guys are sitting around drawing conclusions about what women experience and think. If only HN was half female - could you imagine the difference?
  - sawthat 11y ago
    Or perhaps when a woman hears someone say "as a single man I would like more women in my field" she runs as fast as she can in the other direction?
    - arthur_pryor 11y ago
      good point. and i say that as a guy who, back in the day, made similar jokes about why the lack of gender balance in the CS dept was a bad thing.
cant_kant 11y ago
The graph accompanying the article indicates that we need a global campaign to persuade more men to do "studio.art.drawing". At the very least, we need an article in the Communications of the ACM on the Top 10 Myths About Teaching Studio.Art.Drawing.
- arthur_pryor 11y ago
  i'm guessing this is tongue in cheek, but i think it's actually a good idea. though i think the gender bias that keeps women out of traditionally male-dominated fields is usually more pernicious than the bias that keeps men out of traditionally female-dominated fields [0], the latter's still a problem worthy of addressing. men shouldn't feel odd about wanting to be nurses or teachers or house-husbands or any of the many things that are not traditionally seen as male roles. also, the article for the "top 10 myths about teaching studio art drawing" would probably be more appropriate for a journal on studio art drawing. the ACM should be concerned with gender bias in the computing world. it doesn't have to be concerned with gender bias in studio art drawing just because you want a witty counter-example to show that gender bias against women isn't such a big deal (because actually, it is). [0] i think bias against women is more pernicious because there tends to be less bias against men in this regard, and so any one incidence of bias is less likely to be terribly detrimental to their life overall. a gross generalization, obviously, but i don't think it's off the mark.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
acbart 11y ago
#7 and #8 can be summarized as "Teaching is the right combination of presentation, participation, and feedback". Lecture is a valuable way to do presentation, but you need to integrate participatory activities such as clickers, worksheets, ANYTHING that gets the student to actively work with the material. And of course, that won't be enough for non-didactic people, so you should plan for how students will get timely feedback. Clickers are one mechanism that let you give immediate feedback, but there are many other approaches.
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
I feel like on #4 that at least some exposure to rigor is in order somewhere in high school, for everybody. I say that because that would have helped me a lot because I took a lot of math and really grokking rigor made all the difference once I got there. And then both my kids had exactly the same experience. Is a high school CS course that place for that? Probably not. So I vote for a much tougher algebra course that then of course nobody would ever take.
- thearn4 11y ago
  > I vote for a much tougher algebra course I've played with the notion in my head of teaching something rigorous (but not arduous) like basic Group or Ring theory somewhere in HS. Perhaps in place of the rather large amount of time spent on the algebra of second-order polynomials? Hard to say. I'll admit I have zero training in pedagogy.
  - arthur_pryor 11y ago
    i've thought for a while that a good survey philosophy course would be a great thing for high schoolers. it could introduce a certain sort of rigor (not quite the same as a programming class where things have to run, or a math class where you have to write proofs, but important and maybe easier for many to grasp at first). plus, it'd introduce a wide variety of other belief systems, things like the need to honestly address objections the other side might have, etc. but a good CS course would be great too, because computational literacy and facility/comfort with computational thinking are only becoming more important for making it through the world and having some control over your own fate.
    - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
      The course that made it for me was based on "Transition To Advanced Mathematics" by Egger , Smith and St. Andre. Just learning the actual proofs ( beyond calculus style proofs ) techniques was a big leg up, especially induction and contradiction.
- groovy2shoes 11y ago
bloaf 11y ago
Why the hell would you even think to plot 2^Log2(x) instead of just x?
efaref 11y ago
#1 is definitely off, for certain in the opposite direction. There are some people who simply do not "get" software, and never will. And that's ok. I'm have aphantasia, so I will never be an artist. That's ok. Some people are tone deaf and so will never be musicians. That's ok. Some people are just, let's say "logic blind", and so can never understand how a computer will work through software. They just can't follow it in their minds, in the same way that my mind just can't visualise pictures that are not currently in front of my eyes. It's important that we don't claim the opposite so that people who discover they have aphantasia, or are tone deaf, or are logic blind don't think there's something wrong with themselves, because if "everyone can do it" but they can't then they must be either broken or lazy.
madmax96 11y ago
Does anyone else notice that the graph shows that women vastly outnumber men for AP tests? Or are we ignoring that fact?
Wildgoose 11y ago
57.3% of UK students are female. The majority of University courses in the UK are at least 60% female. If there is any gender bias in evidence it is clearly biased against men. There are only two subjects where the marked pro-female bias switches in favour of men: Computer Science and Engineering. From Times Higher Education, link here: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/infographic-gender-breakdown-at-course-level https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/infographic-gender... I have two daughters and have desperately tried to interest them in maths and computing and understand my enthusiasm for the subjects. They're just not interested. The elder of the two is off to University this autumn to study Illustration (Art). Personally I am sick of hearing about "gender discrimination against women" when all the evidence points to the exact opposite. Men and Women are different. They have different interests. The only myth is that these differences are down to systemic male prejudice towards women. It's nonsense and it's about time this nonsense started being called out for what it is.
- inimino 11y ago
  This is a good example of why we say that the plural of anecdote isn't data. Even if you had two boys, that wouldn't be at all surprising, right? Statistically, most kids aren't going to be interested in computer science. Most children of computer scientists aren't going to go into computer science. Most people don't pick the same major that their parents did, across any and every field. It's only looking at the broader statistics across all kids that we see these tremendous gender imbalances. It's not surprising that any particular young women aren't interested in computer science, but what's surprising is that practically none are. You can attribute that to inherent differences in interest or aptitude, but to do so is to disregard the strong social signals that programming is "for boys". If art was as overwhelmingly male-dominated as computer science is, would your daughter still have developed her interest in it in the first place? That's not as easy a question to answer.
  - Wildgoose 11y ago
    I agree that I can't expect my children to necessarily follow in my footsteps, however the point I was attempting to make was that my daughters weren't interested in maths and computing even after having been actively encouraged to take such an interest. (I have a son as well - he's studying Engineering at University). Meanwhile, you haven't addressed the data that the majority of subjects are female dominated. Psychology for example is 75% female, and yet men are three to seven times more likely to commit suicide than women - yet another gender imbalance that seems to get ignored. All my life I have heard demands that something must be done about any issue where men are in the majority, but at the same time a deafening silence when the reverse is true. A recent study has shown that when applying for tenure-track positions in university science departments that female candidates are now twice as likely to be chosen as equally qualified men. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/14/study-finds-surprisingly-that-women-are-favored-for-jobs-in-stem/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/1... That suggests that the current male dominance in STEM subjects is actually despite the same pro-female bias that we see elsewhere.

68 points by wallflower 11y ago

minionslave 11y ago

I wanna smoke whatever that web designer was smoking.

hutzlibu 11y ago
I don't. Grey on white ... and no(!) margin left. sigh

Jemmeh 11y ago

#2 is off. The article says "the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that we don't need many more software developers" but the link provided (https://computinged.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/we-need-to-produce-far-more-software-developers-than-programmers-how-do-we-change/ https://computinged.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/we-need-to-prod...) says we need loads of software developers, but not as many programmers. From reading the BLS descriptions and some discussions on the programmers stack exchange I'd say programmers as far as the way BLS describes it are essentially intern/entry level software devs. They need someone else to give them direction. http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/4951/what-are-the-key-differences-between-software-engineers-and-programmers http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/4951/what-are...

CM30 11y ago

It's an interesting set of points, but damn, this article is really difficult to read. The light text colour and the tiny font size means I had to basically squint at the screen to make out most of it.

stephenhuey 11y ago
That's because the mobile link was submitted. If you're on a desktop then remove the m. subdomain prefix to go here: http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/189498-top-10-myths-about-teaching-computer-science/fulltext http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/189498-top-10-myths-abou...
- littletinman 11y ago
  1000 times better! My eyes stopped bleeding!
- CM30 11y ago
  Huh, I keep getting redirected to the mobile version on a desktop. Guess it must have something to do with uBlock Orign or something.
  - quentusrex 11y ago
    This is the link you want: http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/189498-top-10-myths-about-teaching-computer-science/fulltext?mobile=false http://cacm.acm.org/blogs/blog-cacm/189498-top-10-myths-abou...
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - reviseddamage 11y ago
      ^ the hero we deserve
- seangrogg 11y ago
  Thank you!
anonyfox 11y ago
You should try the reading-mode button in safari/firefox. Pretty much the very first thing I do on any article before I start reading.
indubitably 11y ago
I routinely drop into the console and say document.body.style.margin = '20%' on disastrous layouts like this.

Bluestrike2 11y ago

Very interesting. The gender data for AP tests in particular, as it seems to suggest that there's a strong self-selection bias at work years before people start applying for tech jobs. Identifying the reasons behind that and persuading otherwise seems like a particularly important area for women in tech groups to focus on.

vonmoltke 11y ago
The only issue I have with the AP data is that it is so sparse. Based on the circle-sizing on that graph, the number of samples is tiny compared to the other subjects, and there is a definite bias for the outliers in both directions to be the tests with the fewest samples, while the tests with the most samples tend to converge on the parity line. My understanding is that AP computer science is basically on life support right now and may be dead entirely within the next few years. It is probably a poor metric for measuring early interest in computer science.
- jaykru 11y ago
  I'm a high school student taking AP CS right now. At least anecdotally, the main problems with the program are curriculum related and instructor related. The curriculum sadly is very fine-tuned to an obscure Java-dialect created specifically for the course. Though the program does teach basic principals of CS, there's a great deal of time wasted on this weird little platform; obviously, most high school students these days with technical inclinations would rather learn more open and directly applicable platforms to learn. The even greater problem though stems from the instruction, which I would argue is derived from the aim of the course itself. There's a very heavy focus on teaching to the test, as in the AP system teachers are rewarded for having high-scoring students. This means there's a lot of bland dissemination of facts and non-trivial projects are few and far between. Overall, as someone who plans to have a career in software, I've been really disappointed with the program. Supposedly there is a program launching in fall 2016 however: https://advancesinap.collegeboard.org/stem/computer-science-principles https://advancesinap.collegeboard.org/stem/computer-science-...
  - 11y ago

pbhjpbhj 11y ago

>If you think that some students just aren't "wired" to program, you as a teacher are unlikely to do as much to help them learn. // So, is true but you mustn't think it? Or you have to pretend it's not? I don't think their conclusion necessarily follows either, seems a possible outcome but some teaching is all about enabling the least "gifted" (and this can tend to fail at stretching those who appear to have a natural propensity). Of there really no genetic element to intelligence?

juliendorra 11y ago
There is obviously inherited factors for all basic cognitive abilities. Humans varies. But cultural factors, bias, training is what start to have impact at birth, what we can leverage. The scientific consensus seems to be that culture/education/context/opportunity is the major factor when concerned with two standard persons (average cognitive abilities at birth). I didn't personally read any cognitive science studies that validated the existence of some people having superior cognitive powers. It appears to be quite grouped at the center, with outliers with very specific talents ("savants"). So let's use the Ockham razor and go for the most likely explanation when learners struggle with any subject: they are not given the right learning process. It has most probably nothing to do with how their brain is wired, because statically, it is most probably very similar to any other brain picked randomly. (As is our genetic code apparently. Two random humans on earth have a very closely similar genetic code, more than was expected at first). For example I have a deplorable sequential memory: I can't really well memorize songs or karate katas. I blame my total lack of musical and dance education. I never really trained for memorizing sequences… Of course I could point to some innate genetic flaw, but this seems like a less likely explanation given what we know about the brain plasticity.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  I didn't get much musical training either, but I used to keep myself entertained by replaying entire albums in my head while walking to school. (Probably not very accurately - but still.) So I think this is very much about how the brain is wired. There's a level beyond which it absolutely isn't learned, either in ability or - more critically - of interest. Compare with dance, where I had similar problems with memorising moves until I did an extended weekend immersion and broke my brain for a few days. It got easier after that, but I'm still at the slower end of any class. I'd guess a lot of people on HN have always had a deep fascination with technology. If you have that kind of draw to a subject, you're not going to be stopped by parental disapproval or negative messages from teachers. Negative messages will make it harder, and lack of resources will certainly kill you more than anything else will. But the interest has to be there in the first place - not in a "I guess that might be kind of interesting" way, but in the "If I don't do this I'm going to be really fucking unhappy" way.

mucker 11y ago

Ah the Nordic Self-Selection Paradox showing up in AP studies. Not shocking. Notice too that the writer is not horrified that men don't want to join AP Art History or AP Psychology.

AnthonyMouse 11y ago
There is an argument to be made that the asymmetry in art history should be resolved by having fewer women study it rather than more men.
- over 11y ago
  What's the argument?

JoeCoder_ 11y ago

> to get more women in CS As a single male I admit it would be nice if there were more women in CS, but ultimately why does it really matter? Men and women are interested in different things and most women I know just aren't very interested in CS. Is there also a push to get more men into French language culture or studio art drawing? Even though most men would find it boring.

hackuser 11y ago
> most women I know just aren't very interested in CS That makes an assumption about their motivation. Much evidence exists that women aren't "interested" becuase they face exclusion and discrimination in CS and pressure to study more 'feminine" subjects. Why do more women take the Statistics AP exam than men? Also, I think there are now more female math majors in colleges than male (but I don't have the data in front of me). The same arguments were used, AFAIK, when women were exluded from most of the workforce and from much of higher education: Women just aren't interested in those things. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, first in her class at Columbia Law School, couldn't get a job at top law firms (and Justice Frankfurter turned her down because of her gender, per Wikipedia) at the beginning of her legal career. Now the majority of law school graduates are female - I guess they were interested after all. But perhaps most telling is that we are talking about women in the third person - this is exactly the problem with a lack of diversity: A bunch of guys are sitting around drawing conclusions about what women experience and think. If only HN was half female - could you imagine the difference?
- sawthat 11y ago
  Or perhaps when a woman hears someone say "as a single man I would like more women in my field" she runs as fast as she can in the other direction?
  - arthur_pryor 11y ago
    good point. and i say that as a guy who, back in the day, made similar jokes about why the lack of gender balance in the CS dept was a bad thing.

cant_kant 11y ago

The graph accompanying the article indicates that we need a global campaign to persuade more men to do "studio.art.drawing". At the very least, we need an article in the Communications of the ACM on the Top 10 Myths About Teaching Studio.Art.Drawing.

arthur_pryor 11y ago
i'm guessing this is tongue in cheek, but i think it's actually a good idea. though i think the gender bias that keeps women out of traditionally male-dominated fields is usually more pernicious than the bias that keeps men out of traditionally female-dominated fields [0], the latter's still a problem worthy of addressing. men shouldn't feel odd about wanting to be nurses or teachers or house-husbands or any of the many things that are not traditionally seen as male roles. also, the article for the "top 10 myths about teaching studio art drawing" would probably be more appropriate for a journal on studio art drawing. the ACM should be concerned with gender bias in the computing world. it doesn't have to be concerned with gender bias in studio art drawing just because you want a witty counter-example to show that gender bias against women isn't such a big deal (because actually, it is). [0] i think bias against women is more pernicious because there tends to be less bias against men in this regard, and so any one incidence of bias is less likely to be terribly detrimental to their life overall. a gross generalization, obviously, but i don't think it's off the mark.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

acbart 11y ago

#7 and #8 can be summarized as "Teaching is the right combination of presentation, participation, and feedback". Lecture is a valuable way to do presentation, but you need to integrate participatory activities such as clickers, worksheets, ANYTHING that gets the student to actively work with the material. And of course, that won't be enough for non-didactic people, so you should plan for how students will get timely feedback. Clickers are one mechanism that let you give immediate feedback, but there are many other approaches.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

I feel like on #4 that at least some exposure to rigor is in order somewhere in high school, for everybody. I say that because that would have helped me a lot because I took a lot of math and really grokking rigor made all the difference once I got there. And then both my kids had exactly the same experience. Is a high school CS course that place for that? Probably not. So I vote for a much tougher algebra course that then of course nobody would ever take.

thearn4 11y ago
> I vote for a much tougher algebra course I've played with the notion in my head of teaching something rigorous (but not arduous) like basic Group or Ring theory somewhere in HS. Perhaps in place of the rather large amount of time spent on the algebra of second-order polynomials? Hard to say. I'll admit I have zero training in pedagogy.
- arthur_pryor 11y ago
  i've thought for a while that a good survey philosophy course would be a great thing for high schoolers. it could introduce a certain sort of rigor (not quite the same as a programming class where things have to run, or a math class where you have to write proofs, but important and maybe easier for many to grasp at first). plus, it'd introduce a wide variety of other belief systems, things like the need to honestly address objections the other side might have, etc. but a good CS course would be great too, because computational literacy and facility/comfort with computational thinking are only becoming more important for making it through the world and having some control over your own fate.
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    The course that made it for me was based on "Transition To Advanced Mathematics" by Egger , Smith and St. Andre. Just learning the actual proofs ( beyond calculus style proofs ) techniques was a big leg up, especially induction and contradiction.
groovy2shoes 11y ago

bloaf 11y ago

Why the hell would you even think to plot 2^Log2(x) instead of just x?

efaref 11y ago

#1 is definitely off, for certain in the opposite direction. There are some people who simply do not "get" software, and never will. And that's ok. I'm have aphantasia, so I will never be an artist. That's ok. Some people are tone deaf and so will never be musicians. That's ok. Some people are just, let's say "logic blind", and so can never understand how a computer will work through software. They just can't follow it in their minds, in the same way that my mind just can't visualise pictures that are not currently in front of my eyes. It's important that we don't claim the opposite so that people who discover they have aphantasia, or are tone deaf, or are logic blind don't think there's something wrong with themselves, because if "everyone can do it" but they can't then they must be either broken or lazy.

madmax96 11y ago

Does anyone else notice that the graph shows that women vastly outnumber men for AP tests? Or are we ignoring that fact?

Wildgoose 11y ago

57.3% of UK students are female. The majority of University courses in the UK are at least 60% female. If there is any gender bias in evidence it is clearly biased against men. There are only two subjects where the marked pro-female bias switches in favour of men: Computer Science and Engineering. From Times Higher Education, link here: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/infographic-gender-breakdown-at-course-level https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/infographic-gender... I have two daughters and have desperately tried to interest them in maths and computing and understand my enthusiasm for the subjects. They're just not interested. The elder of the two is off to University this autumn to study Illustration (Art). Personally I am sick of hearing about "gender discrimination against women" when all the evidence points to the exact opposite. Men and Women are different. They have different interests. The only myth is that these differences are down to systemic male prejudice towards women. It's nonsense and it's about time this nonsense started being called out for what it is.

inimino 11y ago
This is a good example of why we say that the plural of anecdote isn't data. Even if you had two boys, that wouldn't be at all surprising, right? Statistically, most kids aren't going to be interested in computer science. Most children of computer scientists aren't going to go into computer science. Most people don't pick the same major that their parents did, across any and every field. It's only looking at the broader statistics across all kids that we see these tremendous gender imbalances. It's not surprising that any particular young women aren't interested in computer science, but what's surprising is that practically none are. You can attribute that to inherent differences in interest or aptitude, but to do so is to disregard the strong social signals that programming is "for boys". If art was as overwhelmingly male-dominated as computer science is, would your daughter still have developed her interest in it in the first place? That's not as easy a question to answer.
- Wildgoose 11y ago
  I agree that I can't expect my children to necessarily follow in my footsteps, however the point I was attempting to make was that my daughters weren't interested in maths and computing even after having been actively encouraged to take such an interest. (I have a son as well - he's studying Engineering at University). Meanwhile, you haven't addressed the data that the majority of subjects are female dominated. Psychology for example is 75% female, and yet men are three to seven times more likely to commit suicide than women - yet another gender imbalance that seems to get ignored. All my life I have heard demands that something must be done about any issue where men are in the majority, but at the same time a deafening silence when the reverse is true. A recent study has shown that when applying for tenure-track positions in university science departments that female candidates are now twice as likely to be chosen as equally qualified men. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/14/study-finds-surprisingly-that-women-are-favored-for-jobs-in-stem/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/1... That suggests that the current male dominance in STEM subjects is actually despite the same pro-female bias that we see elsewhere.