I was talking to the CS chair at Hunter the other day - he's been a good friend since I joined Hunter and is also teaching the programming course in my teacher ed program this summer. William also taught the same class last year. Due to a shift - we're moving our advanced certificate program from a Summer->Fall->Spring schedule to a more traditional Fall->Spring->Fall->Spring one, this summer, we're running very small sections of our classes specifically for the 4 masters students who would be left in the lurch otherwise.

A couple of weeks ago I was catching up with Cai - one of my many former students now living in the Bay Area. Cai was back in NY to spend time in his company Ironclad's NY office. It was great to catch up. We went over to a local restaurant and I heard a "hey Z!!" from behind me. It was Rodda, younger member of the family. He mentioned that he was at Ramp along with a bunch of other StuyCS folk and that I came up in conversation the other day.

So, last post I talked about the technical interview and unquestionably students at elite private schools have yet another leg up on the other folk. Today, let's look at the core subject of those interviews and what I think should be emphasized in class. I want to be clear - I'm only talking about in class here. There are many things that can be done at public institutions like Hunter to help better prepare students for tech careers.

I'm spending the week down in Atlanta. Never been before but since Batya is spending the semester teaching at Georgia State University, it seemed like a good chance to see her teach and check out a new town. That was the plan anyway. At least until I made the unfortunate decision to come down with Covid again. Symptoms are mild but I'm stuck camping out in our Airbnb while Devorah and Batya can see the sights.

Time to wrap up the SIGCSE 2023 posts. Overall a great conference. The exhibits room was felt a little sparse but from an attendee point of view, not a big deal. Lots of great sessions and got to spend a lot of time with some great people. My only semi-serious complaint would be that this year, sessions were an all or nothing - that is, there were time slots where I wanted to attend two or three sessions and then others where very little appealed to me.

The final session I wanted to talk about was Nifty Assignments. Nifty has gone from a session that went through the approval process each year until it's popularity ended up with it being a regularly scheduled part of the show. It used to be my favorite session but it's slipped behind "It seemed like a good idea at the time" and a couple of others this year - including "Microteaching.

Okay, back to SIGCSE. Next up, a session titled Microteaching run by Colleen Lewis. Here's the paper: link. Unfortunately, the paper doesn't do the session justice as the paper briefly describes a small amount of CS subject matter that each session presenter was going to "teach." By "teach," I mean, do a 7 minute mock version of the lesson for the attendees. That's all fine and good but the thrust wasn't really the actual CS content but how it was delivered.

Yesterday I was at a former student's wedding. It was a beautiful affair. For me, to be invited to attend was one of the greatest gifts I have received as a teacher. Seriously. One of the greatest opportunities of teaching is the chance to be a force for good in a student's life and one of the greatest gifts we can receive is when a student lets you know you've made a difference.

Next up was a session called Pedagogical Innovations. Good stuff but not really pedagogy. Maybe curricular innovations would have been a better title. The third session was about virtual summer camps - I had to skip out for that but here's what went on in the first two sessions. The first session involved professors from Oregon State working with middle school teachers teaching CS through the use of classic physical games.

I'll recount what I said a couple of posts earlier - I was speaking to a HS teacher who I've known for a long time but was meeting in person for the first time. It was his first SIGCSE. I asked how he was liking it. His response was "well, there are a whole lot of professors who really could use a class or two in pedagogy." I'll go further to say that we always give extra value and credence to those that come from elite institutions.