Alan Kay wrote:
> 
> Mark --
> 
> I generally agree -- but it's not clear that great SAT scores mean
> much when it comes to assessing actual thinking skills ... (nor per
> se whether a person can program, come to think of it).
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Alan

I totally agree and I think most will, and that raises so many questions
and issues to be worked out that we will need a global refactoring browser.
Certainly not a text editor... :-)
Karl
> 
> ------
> 
> At 12:52 PM -0400 8/7/01, Mark Guzdial wrote:
> >>From inference and by observation of the demographics of every
> >>programming lab I have ever seen, how does this
> >>statement explain why causcasian, indian, oriental males do not
> >>reject CS majors if boredom is the only issue.
> >>
> >>Education is not supposed to be a rock concert.
> >>
> >
> >Please note my earlier posting: Studies across schools and countries
> >are suggesting that a LARGE percentage of students who are
> >successfully passing intro courses are NOT actually learning to
> >program.
> >
> >The second observation is that introductory courses typically have
> >enormous drop-out and failure rates.  10-30% is not uncommon.  Great
> >that some people are succeeding.  That so many are NOT is a problem.
> >
> >What would you think of a manufacturing process that threw away
> >10-30% of its input raw material?  Georgia Tech brags about having
> >highest average SAT scores of incoming freshmen of any public
> >university in the US.  Our "input" is terrific.  If most of these
> >students are not learning to program, then something's wrong with
> >how we're teaching programming.  The multi-university, multi-country
> >study I mentioned earlier (led by Mike McCracken) showed that it's
> >not just us.  Therefore, I suggest that there's a problem.  I cite
> >the AAUW study as one lead toward a solution.
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >--------------------------
> >Mark Guzdial : Georgia Tech : College of Computing : Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
> >Associate Professor - Learning Sciences & Technologies.
> >Collaborative Software Lab - http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/csl/
> >(404) 894-5618 : Fax (404) 894-0673 : guzdial at cc.gatech.edu
> >http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Faculty/Mark.Guzdial.html
> 
> --