Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Engineering Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Engineering Education

Lynn Andrea Stein

Selected Works

2012

Articles

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

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.


(Re)Defining Computing Curricula By (Re)Defining Computing, Charles Isbell, Lynn Stein, Robb Cutler, Jeffrey Forbes, Linda Fraser, John Impagliazzo, Viera Proulx, Steve Russ, Richard Thomas, Yan Xu May 2012

(Re)Defining Computing Curricula By (Re)Defining Computing, Charles Isbell, Lynn Stein, Robb Cutler, Jeffrey Forbes, Linda Fraser, John Impagliazzo, Viera Proulx, Steve Russ, Richard Thomas, Yan Xu

Lynn Andrea Stein

What is the core of Computing? This paper defines the discipline of computing as centered around the notion of modeling, especially those models that are automatable and automatically manipulable. We argue that this central idea crucially connects models with languages and machines rather than focusing on and around computational artifacts, and that it admits a very broad set of fields while still distinguishing the discipline from mathematics, engineering and science. The resulting computational curriculum focuses on modeling, scales and limits, simulation, abstraction, and automation as key components of a computationalist mindset.


What We've Swept Under The Rug: Radically Rethinking Cs1, Lynn Stein May 2012

What We've Swept Under The Rug: Radically Rethinking Cs1, 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 our work, we teach our students a single-thread-of-control static problem-solving view of the role of the computer program: computation as calculation. In this model, the job of a computer program is to start with a problem, calculate its answer, return that answer, and stop. This program-as-an-island bears little resemblance to most of today's software. We can dramatically improve this situation--and, as a corollary, all of undergraduate computer science--by teaching our students from the very beginning to conceptualize computation with a …


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.