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Full-Text Articles in Education

An Interactive Exploration Of Gender And Engineering: Unpacking The Experience, Debbie Chachra, Lynn Stein, Alisha Sarang-Sieminski, Caitrin Lynch, Yevgeniya Zastavker Sep 2012

An Interactive Exploration Of Gender And Engineering: Unpacking The Experience, Debbie Chachra, Lynn Stein, Alisha Sarang-Sieminski, Caitrin Lynch, Yevgeniya Zastavker

Lynn Andrea Stein

The engineering student experience is understood to differ for male and female students; gendered interactions affect the development of academic and professional role confidence, as well as engineering identity. The purpose of this session is twofold. First, we aim to introduce participants to concepts of gender schemas, privilege, and identity using a range of interactive activities, including brainstorming and structured discussion. Second, we intend to share information about and obtain feedback on a Gender Discussion Exploration Kit, which the participants will be encouraged to review, use, and share at their home institutions.


Work In Progress - A Provisional Competency Assessment System, Mark Somerville, Debbie Chachra, Jonathan Chambers, Ellen Cooney, Kristen Dorsey, John Geddes, Gill Pratt, Kathryn Rivard, Ann Schaffner, Lynn Stein, Jonathan Stolk, Stephen Westwood, Yevgeniya Zastavker Jul 2012

Work In Progress - A Provisional Competency Assessment System, Mark Somerville, Debbie Chachra, Jonathan Chambers, Ellen Cooney, Kristen Dorsey, John Geddes, Gill Pratt, Kathryn Rivard, Ann Schaffner, Lynn Stein, Jonathan Stolk, Stephen Westwood, Yevgeniya Zastavker

Lynn Andrea Stein

Over the last two years Olin College has been defining and implementing a provisional system to develop and assess student competency levels. The system particularly emphasizes the importance of creating a community of practice that includes not only faculty but also staff and students. In this paper we provide an overview of the design process, and comment on the results of our first year of implementing the system.


Designing A Small-Footprint Curriculum In Computer Science, Allen Downey, Lynn Stein Jul 2012

Designing A Small-Footprint Curriculum In Computer Science, Allen Downey, Lynn Stein

Lynn Andrea Stein

We describe an innovative computing curriculum that combines elements of computer science, engineering and design. Although it is tailored to the constraints we face at Olin College, it contains elements that are applicable to the design of a CS major at a small school, a CS minor, or an interdisciplinary program that includes computing. We present the core courses in the program as well as several courses that are meant to connect the computing curriculum to other fields. We summarize the lessons we have learned from the first few years of this program.


Rethinking Cs101: Or, How Robots Revolutionize Introductory Computer Programming, Lynn Stein May 2012

Rethinking Cs101: Or, How Robots Revolutionize Introductory Computer Programming, Lynn Stein

Lynn Andrea Stein

Introductory computer science education is entrenched in an outdated computational model. Although it corresponds neither to our computing environments nor to our work, we insist on teaching our introductory students computation-as-calculation, a mathematical problem-solving view of the role of the computer program. We can dramatically improve this situation -- and, as a corollary, all of undergraduate computer science -- by focusing on the kind of dynamic, interactive, inherently parallel computation that occurs in spreadsheets and video games, web applications and robots.


The Olin Curriculum: Thinking Toward The Future, Mark Somerville, David Anderson, Hillary Berbeco, John Bourne, Jill Crisman, Diana Dabby, Helen Donis-Keller, Stephen Holt, Sherra Kerns, David Kerns, Jr., Robert Martello, Richard Miller, Michael Moody, Gill Pratt, Joanne Pratt, Christina Shea, Stephen Schiffman, Sarah Spence Adams, Lynn Stein, Jonathan Stolk, Brian Storey, Burt Tilley, Benjamin Vandiver, Yevgeniya Zastavker Mar 2012

The Olin Curriculum: Thinking Toward The Future, Mark Somerville, David Anderson, Hillary Berbeco, John Bourne, Jill Crisman, Diana Dabby, Helen Donis-Keller, Stephen Holt, Sherra Kerns, David Kerns, Jr., Robert Martello, Richard Miller, Michael Moody, Gill Pratt, Joanne Pratt, Christina Shea, Stephen Schiffman, Sarah Spence Adams, Lynn Stein, Jonathan Stolk, Brian Storey, Burt Tilley, Benjamin Vandiver, Yevgeniya Zastavker

Lynn Andrea Stein

In 1997, the F. W. Olin Foundation of New York established the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Needham, MA, with the mission of creating an engineering school for the 21st century. Over the last five years, the college has transformed from an idea to a functioning entity that admitted its first freshman class in fall 2002. This paper describes the broad outlines of the Olin curriculum with some emphasis on the electrical and computer engineering degree. The curriculum incorporates the best practices from many other institutions as well as new ideas and approaches in an attempt to address the …