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Brian C. Smith

Computer Science Should Supplement, not Supplant Science Education - 0 views

  • In the integrated STEM classroom, using the principles of NGSS, educators are working to seek out real-world, relevant, authentic problems that would be of interest to students and ask them to apply computational thinking to solve the problem using data analysis, visualization, seeking patterns, and computation.
  • And as everyone knows, time in the school schedule is VERY limited and providing computer science as on a separate track cuts the instructional time pie even more, and sets up another silo in high schools.
Martin Leicht

Learning to Think Like a Computer - The New York Times - 0 views

  • all-important concept in computer science — abstraction — in terms of milkshakes
  • The idea of abstraction,” he said, “is to hide the details.” It requires recognizing patterns and distilling complexity into a precise, clear summary
  • Concealing layers of information makes it possible to get at the intersections of things
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  • In particular, “computational thinking” is captivating educators, from kindergarten teachers to college professors, offering a new language and orientation to tackle problems in other areas of life.
    • Martin Leicht
       
      a computer follow a logical flow, so by breaking down the steps and working through the process you learn a "logic" if you will. This process can then be applied to other non computing challenges as a problem solving exercise.
  • Computer Science Principles, focused not on learning to code but on using code to solve problems.
  • computational thinking — its broad usefulness as well as what fits in the circle. Skills typically include recognizing patterns and sequences, creating algorithms, devising tests for finding and fixing errors, reducing the general to the precise and expanding the precise to the general.
Brian C. Smith

How Silicon Valley Pushed Coding Into American Classrooms - The New York Times - 0 views

  • “It is essential that efforts to increase computer science instruction, kindergarten through career, be driven by the needs of industry and be developed in partnership with industry.”
    • Brian C. Smith
       
      The danger in this statement is that it says computer science instruction. It has little regard for how students learn or their interests. It is all about industry and jobs. If corporate and industry partners want to help, they must take a backseat to qualified educators, not the other way around. We CAN and MUST do better than industries seeking self-serving initiatives.
  • “They are collaborative partners.”
    • Brian C. Smith
       
      Another slippery statement. What knowledge and understanding to industry partners have regarding how children learn? Industry perspective seems to always be that they see training as learning. Most coding platforms being promoted are designed to program the child. The difference between programming the computer and programming the child is a powerful idea that we must discuss in depth and know well. Otherwise, we lose out on the most meaningful and powerful learning experiences we could provide.
  • “We have a lot of debate in this country about how to teach,” he said, “and not enough debate about what to teach.”
    • Brian C. Smith
       
      Not enough talk about how to learn and how to learn it. Some will say they are one in the same, that's simply not true. Teaching implies something teachers do to students (who may or may not yet be learners). While teaching requires students, learning does not require a teacher or teaching. Learning is the consequence of experience and any teaching designed should reflect this powerful idea. When we leave the decisions about how and what to teach to those outside of education, because they are the area "experts", it becomes about the topic and not the child. We will always fail with that approach.
Brian C. Smith

technology - Practical Theory - 0 views

  • We need to understand that until we stop fetishizing technology by making it the focal point of the work every time we pull it out of the closet, we will never move past the notion of “technology integration” to a place of “modern learning.”
  • The idea that technology must be invisible in school is simply this: Using technology to inquire, to create, to share, to research, to learn is not and should not be notable anymore. It should simply be a matter of course.Using technology in school is not the point – learning is.
  • There are still moments when we learn about the technology itself, and that’s a good thing. Whether it is in a computer science class where students are learning to program, or it is in a technology infusion workshop where we help students to learn how to fully integrate the technology into their sense of themselves as a student and citizen, there are moments where we — student and teachers — make the invisible visible.
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  • both students and teachers should have moments of reflection of how the tools affect the learning. But there’s a big leap between understanding how the tool both is vital to and transformative to the work and making the work always about the tool.
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    Lehmann offers an important context for thinking about learning in a technology-rich world.
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