Tuesday, July 29, 2014

CSIT-In-3 Cohort 2 "Show Notes"

Monday

  1. Cornell Notes
  2. Picobots
  3. Laptop Ratings


Tuesday

  1. One World Schoolhouse, Salman Khan
  2. High Speed Computer Access, Arlene Krebs
  3. The Myth of Multitasking, Clifford Nass
  4. The Power of Introverts, Susan Cain
  5. Finite State Machines
  6. Santa Cruz Tech Beat
  7. Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking, Christopher Hadnagy  
  8. Hartnell College STEM Internship Symposium, Friday 22 Aug, 5:30-7:30 PM, Hartnell Main Campus, Steinbeck Hall   
Wednesday
  1. Professionalism, Robert Hall Technologies
  2. Binary Numbers, Computing Unplugged
  3. Alan Turing
  4. CSU Writing Resources
  5. The Victorian Internet, Tom Standage
  6. The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood, James Gleick
  7. The Skeptical Environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg
Thursday
  1. MIT Media Lab
  2. Citizen Science
  3. Kaggle
  4. X-Prizes
  5. AdaFruit 
  6. Genetic Sequencing
  7. Code Academy
  8. Software for students
    1. Microsoft Office -
    2. Anti-virus ( free with OtterID:)
Friday

  1.  Office Hours (Katie ) Mon, Wed, Fri 1-3pm until school starts 
  2. Open Lab 10-5 C-212
  3. What will you do next?
    1. CodeAcademy
    2. CodeBlocks - C++ Compiler for CSS-1
    3. How to Think Like a Computer Scientist (C++)
    4. Meetup.org
    5. AdaFruit
    6. TechShop

Monday, January 13, 2014

Why a 3-year program?

Why are we attempting to compress a rigorous bachelor's degree program into three years?

Isn't a more appropriate question, why are we talking about 6-years as an acceptable time-frame for earning a Bachelor’s degree? Even at 6-years, the national average graduation rate hovers somewhere around only 54%. There are many valid and not-so-valid reasons given for these low 6-year graduation rates – need for remediation in math and English before enrolling in college-level courses, students working while in school to cover rising tuition costs, confusing course pathways, along with a host of other challenges.

We know we can do better. We have to do better. While we don’t have a silver-bullet solution for all of higher education, we believe that for some institutions and some students, a 3-year program is one way to effectively address many of these obstacles. The reduced time-to-graduation means lower tuition costs and earlier entry to the workforce for students. The partnership between a community college and university eases the transition from high school to college and provides cost savings for tuition and living expenses. The accelerated pace keeps students focused on a prescribed year-round pathway. And, the support structure built around the program promotes a cohort learning community, professional and life skills development, and academic progress tracking.

In addition to serving students in the 3-year program, CSIT-In-3 will help us evaluate our traditional Bachelor’s degree programs in order to find ways to decrease time to degree and increase graduation rates.

Our claim is that it is possible to graduate students in as little as 3-years, not only without compromising quality, but with improved quality.