Discrete partnership: a case for a full year of discrete math
Abstract
Discrete mathematics lies at the heart of the discipline of computing and represents one of the few bodies of knowledge with consistent content in our young and changing curriculum. We offer a model of a full-year, two-course experience of discrete structures with the initial course taught by computer science faculty and the second course taught by faculty in mathematics. We argue for the strengths gained in multiple and repeated exposure to the rich set of core topics and for the initial course to occur in the first year rather than the traditional advice to "take calculus". In particular, we present a model of collaboration with mathematics faculty that provides computer science students with an enriched breadth and depth of exposure while helping small departments to handle the constraints in scheduling.
References
[1]
Baldwin, D., Marion, B., and Walker, H.M. Status report on the SIGCSE committee on the implementation of a discrete mathematics course. SIGCSE '04, March 2004, Norfolk, Virginia, 98--99.
[2]
Bruce, K.B., Drysdale, S., Kelemen, C., and Tucker, A. (2003). Why math? Communications of the ACM, Volume 46, Number 9, 40--44.
[3]
Decker, A. and Ventura, P. We Claim this Class for Computer Science: A Non-Mathematician's Discrete Structures Course. SIGCSE '04, March 2004, Norfolk, Virginia, 442--446.
[4]
Henderson, P.B., Barker, W., Epp, S., and Marion, W. Math Educators, Computer Science Educators: Working Together Volume 35, Issue 1 (January 2003), 236--237.
[5]
Henderson, P. B. Why universities require computer science students to take math: mathematical reasoning in software engineering education. Communications of the ACM, Volume 46, Issue 9, 45--50.
[6]
LeBlanc, M.D. and Dyer, B.D. Bioinformatics and Computing Curricula 2001 -- Why Computer Science is well positioned in a post-genomic world. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin - inroads, Volume 36, Number 4, Dec. 2004, 64--67.
[7]
Leibowitz, R. Writing Discrete(ly). Discrete Mathematics in the Schools, DIMACS Series, Volume 36, 1997.
[8]
Marion, B. Status report on the SIGCSE committee on the implementation of a discrete mathematics course. SIGCSE '05, February 2005, St. Louis, Missouri, 194--195.
[9]
Ralston, A. Do we need ANY mathematics in computer science curricula? ACM SIGCSE Bulletin -- inroads, Volume 37, Number 2, June 2005, 6--9.
[10]
Roberts, E. (Ed.) Computing Curricula 2001: Computer Science Final Report, IEEE Computer Society, New York, April 2002.
[11]
Volume of the Computing Curricula Series: Computing Curricula 2005 -- The Overview Report. ACM/AIS/IEEE-CS, April 11, 2005. http://www.acm.org/education.
[12]
http://cs.wheatoncollege.edu/mleblanc/discrete/
[13]
Ashland University, Butler University, Fayetteville State University, Stonehill College, University of Louisiana at Monroe, Valparaiso University, Wheaton College (MA).
[14]
http://www.math-in-cs.org
Index Terms
- Discrete partnership: a case for a full year of discrete math
Recommendations
Discrete partnership: a case for a full year of discrete math
SIGCSE '06: Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science educationDiscrete mathematics lies at the heart of the discipline of computing and represents one of the few bodies of knowledge with consistent content in our young and changing curriculum. We offer a model of a full-year, two-course experience of discrete ...
Status report on the SIGCSE committee on the implementation of a discrete mathematics course
SIGCSE '05: Proceedings of the 36th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science educationThis session is a progress report from the first committee created under the SIGCSE Committee Initiative. The Committee on Implementation of a Discrete Mathematics Course is charged with developing implementation models and materials for the one-...
Status report on the SIGCSE committee on the implementation of a discrete mathematics course
This session is a progress report from the first committee created under the SIGCSE Committee Initiative. The Committee on Implementation of a Discrete Mathematics Course is charged with developing implementation models and materials for the one-...
Comments
Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
March 2006612 pagesISBN:1595932593DOI:10.1145/1121341- Program Chairs:
- Doug Baldwin,
- Paul Tymann,
- Susan Haller,
- Ingrid Russell
Copyright © 2006 ACM.
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
New York, NY, United States
Publication History
Published: 03 March 2006
Published in SIGCSE Volume 38, Issue 1
Check for updates
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Article
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- View Citations7Total Citations
- 364Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)1
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 15 Oct 2024
Other Metrics
Citations
View Options
Get Access
Login options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Sign in