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Competence and character: pedagogical considerations for preparing students to be professionals

Published: 28 March 2008 Publication History

Abstract

Our goal in teaching undergraduate computer science should not be merely to impart knowledge, but to develop professionals. This paper uses Aristotle's concept of intellectual virtues as a starting point for understanding the range of skills needed to build professional competence. The paper then discusses the use of various evaluation approaches (tests, projects, etc.) and classes policies to develop professional competence.

References

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Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc Indianapolis, 1962. Translated by Martin Ostwald.
[2]
Association of Computing Machinery. ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, 1997.
[3]
A. Eckerdal, R. McCartney, J. E. Moström, M. Ratcliffe, and C. Zander. Can graduating students design software systems? In SIGCSE '06: Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, pages 403--407, New York, NY, USA, 2006. ACM.
[4]
S. Floyd. Morally serious pedagogy. In Christian Scholar's Review, volume 36, Spring 2007.
[5]
Gamma, Helm, Johnson, and Vlissides. Design Patterns Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software. Addison-Wesley, Massachusetts, 2000.
[6]
W. S. Humphrey. Three dimensions of process improvement part ii: The personal process. CrossTalk: the Journal of Defense Software Engineering, March 1998.
[7]
A. MacIntyre. After Virtue. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1984.
[8]
M. McLuhan. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, 1964.
[9]
D. J. Melling. Understanding Plato. Oxford University Press, 1987.
[10]
G. M. Weinberg. The Psychology of Computer Programming (Silver Anniversary edn). Dorset House, NY, 1998.

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  1. Competence and character: pedagogical considerations for preparing students to be professionals

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      cover image ACM Other conferences
      ACMSE '08: Proceedings of the 46th annual ACM Southeast Conference
      March 2008
      548 pages
      ISBN:9781605581057
      DOI:10.1145/1593105
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      Published: 28 March 2008

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      Author Tags

      1. education
      2. pedagogy

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      ACM SE08
      ACM SE08: ACM Southeast Regional Conference
      March 28 - 29, 2008
      Alabama, Auburn

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