Where did history go?

Gained, all students in computer science programs must be involved in at least one substantial software project. Such a project demonstrates the practical application of principles learned in different courses and forces students to integrate material learned at different stages of the curriculum. ” ” 5) Adaptability. One of the essential characteristics of computer science over its relatively brief history has been an enormous pace of change. Graduates of a computer science program must possess a solid foundation that allows them to maintain their skills as the field evolves. ” To help students achieve these characteristics faculty must encourage students to do some ” metacognition ” about their own learning process to help them make the connections. This will require sustained mentoring during the undergraduate years to enable students gain appreciation and take responsibility for their maturation into a computer professional. To further assist this process, CC2001 has an entire section on coping with change. ” An essential requirement of any computer science degree is that it should enable graduates to cope with—and even benefit from—the rapid change that is a continuing feature of the computing field… Fundamentally, teaching students to cope with change requires instilling in students an attitude that promotes continued study throughout a career. ” It presents a number of pedagogical strategies to assist faculty to plan learning experiences that will promote the development of a ” big picture, ” lifelong learning perspective in students. In the next column, I will discuss the specific capabilities and skills of a CS graduate and the benchmarking standards provided in CC2001 to assess these skills. In the meantime, I invite all CS professors to go to the SIGCSE website and read the final version of the report. The message is clear for all of us. We must focus on outcomes and think hard about the product of our labors. All departments need to start at the end and work backward to reverse engineer our curricula to meet the needs of a field that is a constantly moving target. Reflections B ack in April 2002, a group of historians and educators met at the University of Minnesota for a weekend of discussion on the topic of the use of computer history in the undergraduate curriculum. This was actually the second session on this topic, the first having been held at Amherst College in August 2001.