---
abstract: "Introductory computer science education is entrenched in an outdated computational model. Although it corresponds neither to our computing environments nor our work, we teach our students a single-thread-of-control static problem-solving view of the role of the computer program: computation as calculation. In this model, the job of a computer program is to start with a problem, calculate its answer, return that answer, and stop. This program-as-an-island bears little resemblance to most of today's software. We can dramatically improve this situation--and, as a corollary, all of undergraduate computer science--by teaching our students from the very beginning to conceptualize computation with a model of computer programs as simultaneous ongoing entities embedded in and interacting with a dynamic environment: computation as interaction; computation as it occurs in spreadsheets and video games, web applications and robots."
altloc:
- http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/las/papers/rug.html
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creators_name:
- family: Stein
given: Lynn Andrea
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date: 1998
date_type: published
datestamp: 1999-06-25
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dir: disk0/00/00/05/43
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lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:02
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metadata_visibility: show
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number: 2
pagerange: 118-129
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publication: Computer Science Education
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rev_number: 8
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status_changed: 2007-09-12 16:30:35
subjects:
- comp-sci-art-intel
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title: "What We've Swept Under the Rug: Radically Rethinking CS1"
type: journalp
userid: 348
volume: 8