Agreed, Alan.  I also don't like the analogy of a manufacturing 
process to an education process.

The point is that the students at Tech seem bright, though we may not 
have good measures for that.  If we can't teach them to program, it 
behooves us to (a) figure out a better way to teach them or (b) 
figure out why it is that programming is so hard that people we 
perceive as bright have a hard time with it.

Mark

>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
>
>------
>
>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