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   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Apr-2024 23:18:52 JST Paul Cantrell

   • mekka okereke :verified:

   This from @mekkaokereke is true of education as well as workplaces. How does the intro sequence hit for students? Are those courses •inviting•, or •weeding out•? Because that right there is your DEI values made manifest, and no amount of trainings and workshops will change that baseline. https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/112219016968211952

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Apr-2024 23:24:12 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     In my view, the single most effective step Macalester’s computer science program has taken toward improving its inclusivity is changing how we teach the first-semester CS course. Lots of work on •many• fronts, but if I’m picking one thing, that’s it.

     Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard CS majors say “I wasn’t sure I could be a programmer, and then I took COMP 123 and I loved it.” And that remark comes disproportionately from folks in groups usually marginalized in CS.

   • Embed this notice
     Lesley Lai (lesley@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Friday, 05-Apr-2024 23:43:10 JST Lesley Lai

     in reply to

     • mekka okereke :verified:

     @inthehands @mekkaokereke I never thought it from the DEI perspective, but "weed out" intro courses always felt like excuses for horrible teaching for me

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Apr-2024 23:43:59 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • mekka okereke :verified:
     • Lesley Lai

     @lesley @mekkaokereke
     That’s 100% true, and on top of that, they’re excuses for discrimination. Real twofer there.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Apr-2024 23:46:54 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin
     • mekka okereke :verified:

     @Okanogen @mekkaokereke
     I know there was a reckoning about stuff like that across the college in the 90s. There was a window under President Gavin when the college became very credentialist, trying to become another Ivy or some crap. That got stamped out, but not before losing some really good people. Before my time as faculty, so I don’t know the dirt.

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     okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin (okanogen@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 05-Apr-2024 23:46:55 JST okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin

     in reply to

     • mekka okereke :verified:

     @inthehands @mekkaokereke
     My friend (a fellow Macalester alum) was an untenured math prof there in the 90's. She was a top math grad and academic all-american, and has an MS and PhD and statistics from MIT. Her tenure was denied supposedly because of "inferior credentials", but she believed it was because of a) being a woman, and b) her focus on teaching rather than publishing. I hope that has changed in the last 20 years.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-Apr-2024 23:48:53 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin
     • mekka okereke :verified:

     @Okanogen @mekkaokereke
     Academia is full of crap like that. It’s very hierarchical, and full of people passing forward the patterns of abuse that they’ve experienced because they think that’s what virtue looks like. Which among other things gives license to teach abusive “weed out“ classes with discriminatory impact.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 06-Apr-2024 00:09:22 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin

     @Okanogen
     That totally sounds like some Gavin shit. Since there are many malum who know teach at the college, I’m hopeful that that is in the distant past.

     I always stop by the tent party at least at reunion. Flag me down if you spot me!

   • Embed this notice
     okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin (okanogen@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 06-Apr-2024 00:09:23 JST okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin

     in reply to

     • mekka okereke :verified:

     @inthehands @mekkaokereke
     They said her undergrad being Macalester was what hurt her getting tenure AT MACALESTER, and yes, this was under Gavin when they were trying to be the Midwest Harvard or something. Maybe I'll meet you at reunion....

   • Embed this notice
     okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin (okanogen@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 06-Apr-2024 01:28:26 JST okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin

     in reply to

     @inthehands
     I would be the old dude two-fisting martinis.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 06-Apr-2024 01:28:26 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • okanogen VerminEnemyFromWithin

     @Okanogen
     I’m the skinny white guy with long curly red hair, no martinis, just a goofy smile. Say hi any time, at reunion or on campus.

   • Embed this notice
     Sean Murthy (smurthys@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 06-Apr-2024 01:29:18 JST Sean Murthy

     in reply to

     A #CS dept. chair insisted the 2nd course *must be* weeding.

     The 1st course he said doesn't matter, but he loaded it up with so much junk and presented in illogical sequence, that the course was obviously weeding.

     I fought a good fight against the stupidity and lost. Needless to say I left the department.

     I still feel terrible for choosing to leave, that I let down students, but had to put my health and family first.

     Not a week goes by I'm not reminded of the tragedy. 🥹

     #academia #higherEd

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 01:13:43 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • lj·rk

     @ljrk
     I think you’d like our curriculum. We’ve explicitly tackled pretty much every single sentence of your post — not with 100% success, granted, but: intro courses are like 15% lecture time, hands-on learning, almost all courses have student-directed team projects, working with teams is an •explicit• and central learning goal, initial focus is on practical experience that teaches general patterns + builds capacity to learn, etc etc etc.

   • Embed this notice
     lj·rk (ljrk@todon.eu)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 01:13:45 JST lj·rk

     in reply to

     @inthehands There's soooo much wrong with education, it's incredible.

     A lot of it is based on effectively infodumping students for 1.5hrs straight and then expecting them to understand. Of course this actually just filters those who, for whatever reason, aren't perfectly prepared for the course at that moment or cannot hold that for 1.5hrs.

     Then there's absurd external time pacing with turned in homework.

     And, something not completely unique to CS but very common there, unclear communication onto what CS is. Is it IT administration? Is it programming? Is it software engineering? Is it project management? Is it electrical engineering? Is it maths? Is it all those things?

     Of course you'll have a lot of students who, even if they master the classes, actually don't really wanna do whatever subset of the above your university has decided upon choosing.

     In my opinion the first year should have a good mix of very "practical" skills, even simple administrative tasks, some engineering thinking plus low-ball academic/scientific things with the next semesters offering specialization in different branches.

     And for the other issues: Fuckin kill lectures (mostly). Use self-paced learning. Teach methods, heck, even group work is a method that one needs to learn!

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 01:15:04 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • ijw

     @bulletsweetp
     The department has come a long, long way since the 90s. And to be fair, it was doing great things in the 90s — but both pedagogy and content are light years beyond where they were in many respects. It’s not a place that’s been sitting still.

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     ijw (bulletsweetp@mastodon.world)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 01:15:06 JST ijw

     in reply to

     @inthehands

     Mac alum here (92) and this makes me so happy! I took one CS class and didn’t go back for more, did linguistics instead. BUT I am now a senior engineer at a big well-known company, having discovered that programming really *was* for me after all.

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     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 01:17:37 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Gen X-Wing

     @breadbin
     I suspect you’d enjoy this thread: https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina/112205399028342839

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     Gen X-Wing (breadbin@bitbang.social)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 01:17:38 JST Gen X-Wing

     in reply to

     @inthehands I feel that both education and corporate (and I guess OSS as well) tends to be bad at building up vs seeing everything as competition.

     It’s amazing what people can learn and achieve when they are supported and encouraged. Competing simply breeds competitors.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 01:25:48 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • mekka okereke :verified:
     • jonathanpeterson
     • Lesley Lai

     @jonathanpeterson @lesley @mekkaokereke
     Yes, weed-out courses certainly exist at many places, sometimes by accident, sometimes very much on purpose. There’s also an active and thriving movement against them. This is an area of active contention and progress in the teaching world for, oh, the last couple of decades at least.

   • Embed this notice
     jonathanpeterson (jonathanpeterson@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 01:25:49 JST jonathanpeterson

     in reply to

     • mekka okereke :verified:
     • Lesley Lai

     @lesley @inthehands @mekkaokereke ARE there "weed out" intro courses though? It's been a long time since my undergrad days, but weed stuff was usually late 2nd year, when there were gateways to move to adjacent disciplines.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 01:27:34 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Jen

     @JetlagJen
     The term people in higher ed use for this kind of this is “the hidden curriculum:” the things that you’re supposed to know, but nobody ever taught you, except somebody •did• teach you out-of-band if you grew up with a certain kind of privilege.

   • Embed this notice
     Jen (jetlagjen@geekdom.social)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 01:27:36 JST Jen

     in reply to

     @inthehands

     My first couple of weeks of uni was utter confusion. I was given a stack of paper several inches thick and left to it. I had to figure out how and where to register for my course, how to pick and register for a subsidiary, how to find my way around a whole new city... I mentioned to someone how bewildering it all was and got brushed off with "it's all in the docs," "others manage" and "you're not at school now, we're not spoon-feeding you."

     I coped only because I knew a 2nd year.

   • Embed this notice
     Rachel Rawlings (linuxandyarn@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 01:29:55 JST Rachel Rawlings

     in reply to

     • mekka okereke :verified:

     @inthehands @mekkaokereke My CS061 course in the 90s was a weed out course. But I was a part-time student in my 20s, had programmed Pascal in high school, and ached to get my degree back on track.

     So the semester after I aced the course, I spoke with the TA from that class because I was trying to get out of my secretarial gig, angling for a recommendation. Got nowhere toward a new job, but he said the prof missed me and that "this term there are no Rachels."

     Egoboo++
     Career+=0

   • Embed this notice
     Rachel Rawlings (linuxandyarn@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 01:29:55 JST Rachel Rawlings

     in reply to

     • mekka okereke :verified:

     @inthehands @mekkaokereke I also took precalculus at Temple, despite having gotten a C- in high school trig from a guy who called me "useless" when I went to him for help in October, and a mercy D in calc the following year. It was a prereq, so there was no way to avoid it.

     The Temple instructor was open, encouraged questions, and appreciated group efforts. I fucking aced it, because even though DEI wasn't an acronym at the time, he lived by its principles. And that inspired me to do the work.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 07-Apr-2024 01:29:55 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • mekka okereke :verified:
     • Rachel Rawlings

     @LinuxAndYarn @mekkaokereke
     It’s just amazing what one teaching giving a shit can do.

     It’s also worth mentioning that individual teachers can’t save the system by carrying its failure on their shoulders. Huge classes, long hours, administrative hoops, lack of institutional support, lack of support from colleagues, outright abuse — all these can take that teacher who gives a shit and burn them out in no time. It takes a village to teach a student.

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     Alexandra Magin 🏳️‍🌈 (recursive@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 09-Apr-2024 02:05:24 JST Alexandra Magin 🏳️‍🌈

     in reply to

     • mekka okereke :verified:

     @inthehands @mekkaokereke Never thought about the parts of undergrad that were good and the parts that were difficult in that way, but that's absolutely true in my experience