ACM India Education Committee

ACM Education CouncilSeptember 2014, Portland OR

Mathai JosephChair, ACM India Education Committee

ACM India members

June 2008

June 2009

June 2010

June 2011

June 2012

June 2013

Dec 2013

June 20140

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

8,000

9,000Professional Student Total

June 20, 2014 ACM Council Meeting 2

ACM India Education Committee

Members

Purandar Bhaduri (IIT Guwahati)

Mathai Joseph (Convenor)

Amardeep Kahlon (formerly BM Univ, New Delhi)

Madhavan Mukund (CMI, Chennai)

Maneesha V Ramesh (Amrita Univ)

Abhiram Ranade (IIT Powai)

Vipul Shah (TCS R&D)

Gautam Shroff (TCS R&D)

R. Venkatesh (TCS R&D)

Main Activities

• Increasing knowledge, ability and interest in computing in schools,

• Improving teaching methods and content in engineering colleges, and

• Encouraging use of on-line material for learning about computing

Schools

• Workshop with educators, school heads, teachers from selected schools and ACM India computer scientists (2013)

• Good discussion on how computing can be taught in schools

• Series of talks on computer science at Pune schools

• Aim to replicate this in other cities

Schools

• Groups to study CSTA (Computer Science Teachers Association), CMC (Computer Masti Curriculum) and other curricula;  

• Start workshops for teachers in several areas (Alan Turing, Algorithms, Scratch etc.).  

• Computer Masti: managed by Sridhar Iyer (IIT Powai)

Colleges

• Focus on improving teaching in engineering colleges

• This is where most of India’s IT recruits come from

• Severe lack of teachers• Inflexible syllabus

Colleges

• Initial focus on teaching algorithms & complexity– Core for understanding CS

• Teacher training workshops held in– Hyderabad, Trivandrum, Pune (2)

• More planned in other cities• Bring in discussion on ACM Curriculum

2013

MOOCs

• Very limited uptake from institutions• Participation by individual students to

improve employability/admission prospects for higher education

• Need for Indian MOOCs– Oriented around existing syllabuses– Understand student background– Low cost by Indian standards

Mini-MOOCs

• Course on Big Data at IIT Delhi / IIIT Delhi• Introductory course on programming from

IIT Powai• Introductory course on programming and

data structures from IIT Madras (part of NPTEL)

Obstacles

• Inflexible syllabus – Compendium of topics– Highly prescriptive– Very little problem solving

• Changes will not happen quickly– Need discussions with governing boards,

government committees, etc.

• Changes will be resisted !– Need extensive teacher training

New Courses

Opportunity exists!– Introduce elective courses– Develop material, deliver, record

1. Programming 2– Python-based, focus on problem-solving– Reasoning: logic, assertions, etc.

2. Android programming– Introduction to OS, threads, concurrency etc.– Theoretical foundations

Summary

• Long haul, no quick solutions!– Work to change syllabus, methods– Train teachers to deliver core topics– Bring in new topics

• Motivate colleges, teachers• Attract students

Query

• Concurrency now seems off the agenda in undergraduate teaching

• How are concurrency, distributed systems taught at your institution?

• Glad to discuss this further (offline)