Be it Resolved: Debate Makes Learning Computer Science a Lifelong Experience
Article No.: 3, Pages 1 - 6
Abstract
In a recent study involving 17,000 post-secondary students in the United States and Puerto Rico, within STEM disciplines, computer science scored relatively low in students' retention rate. Among the students registered in a STEM discipline, less than one half obtained their degree in that discipline (maximum (49%) in engineering). Among the students registered in computer science, only 31% (the minimum within STEM) stayed to the end to get their degree. In another angle, recent surveys found that graduates in computer science are lacking in many areas, including technical abilities, personal skills, and professional qualities. The widespread complaint from many industries, if not all, is that we are not graduating students with the skills they need for their careers. These two observations raise serious concerns about (or at least challenge us to rethink) the way computer science is taught in our universities.
The contribution of this paper is a step in the direction of addressing the concerns described above. We advocate a radical change in the computer science education; it must gradually reduce lecture-dominated passive learning and replace it with suitable active learning techniques. Particularly, we make our case by sharing the experience of incorporating debate along with technical writing in highly technical computer science subjects such as computer architecture, operating systems, and concurrent programming, distributed systems, etc.
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Published: 03 May 2019
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Overall Acceptance Rate 78 of 117 submissions, 67%
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