Innovating Our Self Image (Special Session)

Abstract

The NSF CISE Directorate selected Owen Astrachan and Peter Denning as the first two Distinguished Education Fellows. Their job is to serve as ambassadors for curriculum change in a field whose basic curriculum structure is much the same as it was in the 1970s. They believe that: The outdated 1970-era curriculum structure is largely responsible for the harmful and misleading external image that CS=programming.The external image reflects an internal self-image that started in the 1970s as “we are programmers” and matured in the 1990s to “we are masters of abstraction.” These images do not foster collaboration with other fields and do not excite the curiosity of young people.