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“A Pump, not a Filter”
• Philosophy of St. Olaf’s Math dept:– http://www.aacu.org/aacu_news/AACUNews0
7/November07/feature.cfm
• Filter: sift out all but the strongest students
• Pump: Infuse new students and new interests into the field
• Do CS programs tend more towards “filter” or “pump”?
More About St. Olaf
• “…we’d like everyone to be a math major! We want to open the doors to all students, not just the A students.”
• “We don’t try to convince first-year students in their first math class to major in math…”
• “It’s mostly a matter of allowing the subject to sell itself”
• 3000 undergraduate students– 10% are Math majors– More students go on to earn PhD in Math than any
other liberal arts college in USA
Strict Course Sequencing
• Is strict course sequencing necessary?– Courses could be offered by topic and difficulty– Seems to work in Philosophy
• Prereq: One previous course in Philosophy• Could CS courses be structured this way?
• One small step in this direction– Zero-prereq Robotics course– Sequel: Advanced Robotics
• Prereqs: Robotics or CS1• CS2 prereqs: CS1 or Advanced Robotics
Some imaginable steps further
• 100 level courses– Robotics– Web programming– 3D graphics– Interface design
• 200 level courses– Advanced versions of each– Interchangeable prerequisites
Observations from Experience
• Robotics course at Hendrix
• This year: – 3 completely full sections, 16 students each– Undergraduate population: 1200– About 4% of student body
• If repeated annually:– 16% of students willingly study programming– At a liberal arts college!
Questions for Discussion
• Could this approach attract “artistic” students who normally avoid CS?
• Would this approach necessarily compromise rigor?
• What, precisely, is the importance of rigor?
• What would an upper-level curriculum look like?
• What other trade-offs are there?
