| Date | Speaker | Talk |
| May 1, 2007 | Richard Pattis, Associate Teaching Professor and SCS Freshman Advisor, Department of Computer Science; Carnegie Mellon University | CS-1: Forwards and Backwards |
I will talk about how CS-1 has been taught, is taught, might be taught, and should be taught, focusing on CS-1 as an introduction to programming course. I will discuss whether CS-1 should be a programming course (relative to majors and non-majors), and if so what kind of programming should be taught - beyond language issues. My perspective is that of someone who has spent over 30 years in the trenches, and who periodically tries to come up and get a fresh view of the changing terrains.
Richard Pattis received a BS in Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon and MS in Computer Science from Stanford, where he taught frequently as a graduate student and wrote "Karel the Robot". He worked as a lecturer first at the University of Washington and now is back at Carnegie Mellon, advising freshmen and teaching. In 2006 he received the SIGCSE Award for Oustanding Contribution to Computer Science Education.