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Teaching empirical skills and concepts in computer science using random walks

Published:23 February 2005Publication History

ABSTRACT

An argument is made for integrating the study of empirical skills and concepts into the computer science curriculum. With reference to past work an incremental approach is advocated for the study of these skills and concepts. A unique assignment that exemplifies the advocated approach is presented. This assignment, based on the study of random walks, is intended to introduce empirical investigation as early as is possible, during the first week of the first course. Two extensions to this assignment, one for the first course and one for a programming languages course, are discussed and used to illustrate the advocated incremental approach.

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          cover image ACM Conferences
          SIGCSE '05: Proceedings of the 36th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
          February 2005
          610 pages
          ISBN:1581139977
          DOI:10.1145/1047344

          Copyright © 2005 ACM

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          Association for Computing Machinery

          New York, NY, United States

          Publication History

          • Published: 23 February 2005

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