Scientific Computing
Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Math
Teaching & Learning Math & Science with Technology:
Graphing Calculators, Numerical Methods, Computer Algebra Systems & Linux Clusters
Why Shadowfax? Our cluster is so fast that we named it after the Lord Of The Rings character!
Website once known as http://CalcPage.tripod.com (1988 – 2008)
What is the State Of Computing Science education in 2020? I don't know if I can speak to that except from my own experiences at my own High School, so that's what this blog will be about. Note further that I'm referring to Computing Science and not Computer Science. I teach Mathematics and Computer Science, I've also been known to teach Chemistry and Physics, at a Middle School, High School or Community College in New York State every year since 1984. However, my primary interest in Computer Science is in a little known niche called Computing Science or Scientific Computing.
Scientific Computing is all about modeling real world phenomena, running simulations and exploring what if scenarios, using programming environments and computer algebra systems such as Mathematica, MATLAB and SPSS. I've taught with free versions of these packages for decades in Linux: SAGE, Octave and R. We also do a lot of modeling in Computer Science class with programming languages from FORTRAN, BASIC and Pascal to C++, Java and Python even Logo and Processing!
I'm not teaching AP Computer Science A (CSA) this year so as to restart my curriculum with our intro Computer Science Honors (CSH) course using Python. I currently have 18 students in CSH, but I have a lot of seniors, so only 9 students are going on to CSA next year. We can't run a section with less than 13 students, so we may have to combine the 2 sections next year with 12 students that signed up for CSH. So I'll be back to CSA in one year for the noobie students.
We had 2 sections (CSH and CSA) for many years (since 1984). Recently, we stopped populating CSH and put everyone in CSA but our results for those 5 years were poor on the AP exam, so we brought CSH back this year. The idea was to have 2 sections each year from now on, but no dice. I was asked to teach both courses simultaneously in one section next year, but that would be even more disastrous!
Approximate Enrollment History
CSH 24 Students 1984-2014
CSA 12 Students 1984-2014
CSH 00 Students 2014-2019
CSA 24 Students 2014-2019
CSH 18 Students 2019-2020
CSA 00 Students 2019-2020
CSH 00 Students 2020-2021
CSA 21 Students 2020-2021
I have taught the intro class using several versions of BASIC from 1984-2010. We did not call it CSH then and it wasn't a full year course either. The intro CompSci class was 2 semester courses. The first one was called Computer Math (CM) and the second was called Advanced Computer Math (ACM). We changed the name of the intro course to Computer Science Honors in 2010 when we made it a full year course taught with Python. We use Litvin's awesome Discrete Mathematics text and we also do some turtle.py graphics in IDLE and visual.py 3D graphics in VIDLE.
My school just started an AP Computer Science Principles (CSP) section this year, so I'm competing with that course too. I'm a member of the Math dept. CSA has always been taught by our dept. CSP is currently taught by a Science teacher. I didn't want to teach CSP as it's too much like a CS 101 class in college for non majors. Further, CSP has five modules, only one of which is about algorithms based solely on pseudo code... not my cup of tea.
FYI, I also teach Computing Science Lab (CSL) for Calculus students learning Computer Algebra Systems and Computing Science Independent Study (CSI) for students who have taken CSA and want to build a Linux cluster. We haven't had the enrollment to offer CSL for some years now, but we cover Computer Algebra Systems is preCalculus Honors now. As you can see, for better or worse, I have been the only teacher in my school in charge of maintaining and developing CompSci related curricula like this (CSH, CSA, CSI and CSL but not CSP) over the course of the past 36 years! Well, that's all folks.
