2020-10-16 Justice League
Today we talk about teaching in the Computer Science Department. There are four of us here and we will each talk for a few minutes about some aspect of teaching in the CS Department and answer questions. We also welcome any suggestions!
Tim Hickey: Overview of our department plans
Pito Salas: Discussion of teaching the Robotics lab entirely online
Hongfu Liu: Overview of the Machine Learning courses we are developing at Brandeis...
Iraklis Tsekourakis: Discussion of teaching ideas from his previous employer (Stevens Institute of Technology) and his experience teaching large CS courses here.
Overview of Teaching Goals in the CS Department
Enrollments have been rapidly increasing (typically around 300 students take CS10a each year,
184 this semester in 2 lectures classes and 1 asychronous class)
Gender and Racial/Ethnic diversity has been increasing in the last 5 years
(about 33% of our graduating seniors are women and about 5-10% are students of color).
We are forming a Computer Science Diversity Taskforce this semester and our first order of business will be to get current diversity data and set concrete achievable goals for demographics.
We are planning to modify our curriculum to better prepare students for jobs in private industry
(add a Software Engineering course, perhaps add an internship style course where students learn to
apply for jobs, practice mock interviews, etc.)
We are adding a new suite of Machine Learning and Data Science courses
and are looking into an Master's in ML and/or DS
Some of these will require only a single programming course as prerequisite...
Personally, I'm excited about the book "Grading for Equity" https://gradingforequity.org/
which makes a very convincing case that we should radically transform the way we grade to increase equity in schools.
It is based on three principles
grading should accurately reflect the student's mastery of the skills and concepts being taught
grading should be bias-resistant, preventing biased subjectivity from affecting the grades
grading should motivate students to strive for academic success, persevere, accept struggles and setbacks, and to gain critical lifelong skills
So it should not be used to coerce behavior (submitting homework on time, attending class regularly, participating in class, etc.) and the grades should be based 100% on summative assessments (though students should be allowed to take makeup exams etc to demonstrate mastery...)