我一直喜欢逻辑和谜题. I remember loving the worksheets we would get in math class where you have to figure out who lives in which house based on the color of their shirts and the pets they have. And I got minorly obsessed with writing sonnets in middle school after our Shakespeare unit because I liked the challenge of figuring out how to say what you want within the rules of iambic pentameter. 我的计划是在大学里学习数学或物理, 但我参加了一些编程课程，因为我认为这将是一个有用的工具, 我也很喜欢编程就像一个谜题. 这是我的第一门算法理论课，让我迷上了计算机科学. 关于计算过程，有些真理是可以证明的, 独立于任何特定的硬件或编程语言, 很具有启发性. 这也让我意识到，我喜欢把计算机作为一门科学来研究, 而不是作为一个工程实践, 虽然我也开始欣赏它的另一面了.

我开始研究人工智能是因为我对逻辑学也很感兴趣. My first AI research project back in 1990 was on automated theorem provers—how to build systems that could take a conjecture in mathematics and come up with a correct, 它的正式证明. 我读研究生的时候一直在这个领域工作, eventually adding language generation into the mix and looking at the logical rules behind the structure of sentences and of entire arguments. Being able to pull in knowledge from other disciplines like linguistics is one of the fun things about working in computer science. 你可以建立很多联系, 我能够不断学习和尝试新事物.

我从W开始&J在2004年, a couple of years after the department was formed as an experiment in what it would look like to create a distinctly liberal arts computing program that didn’t necessarily have to follow the traditional curriculum of computer science. 我们采用高度跨学科的方法进行计算机教育. 对于我们的专业, 即使是专注于数据科学的学生也会学习一些视觉设计, 平面设计专业的学生也会做一些编程. 他们在课程和项目工作中遇到来自不同学科的问题, 从入门关卡一直到顶点阶段.

对于部门来说, 这意味着我们认为我们在教育学生方面的作用与我们在教育专业方面的作用一样重要. 我们有一个愿景声明，每个W&学生应该能够参加CIS项目的课程, 在一个活跃的, 实践的方式, 这与他们的专业课程相关，并能加强他们的学习，进一步实现他们的学术目标.

我们已经开发了一套广泛的入门课程，以补充校园内的其他专业, 比如数据库开发, 数字视频, 游戏设计, 数据挖掘, 信息可视化, 以及网络开发. 重要的是, 这些课程和我们CIS专业的学生一样, so students can be assured they will be learning valuable skills that they can apply directly to problems they want to solve. 作为教师, 我们仔细考虑如何组织我们的课程，以支持我们所教的学生的范围. 我们这样做的一种方法是在我们所有的课程中使用基于项目和问题的学习. Taking advantage of problems and projects drawn from other disciplines gives all of the students in the class the chance to be experts and novices at different portions of the work they are doing.

体验式学习在计算机科学课堂上非常重要. There’s a growing literature showing that the big innovations in computing education are moving towards more interdisciplinary computing and more experiential learning. 我相信这些教学法在任何领域都是有价值的, but the world of computer science is changing so quickly that it isn’t the particular facts or content students learn in college that are going to be most important—it’s the problem solving and independent learning skills. 体验式学习在支持具有不同背景的不同学生群体方面也很有效, 利益, 和目标. Grounding a course in real problems to be solved gives context and motivation for why the things we are learning are worth knowing. 有一种倾向是，教授一门课程时，假设学生自然会觉得这个话题很有趣, 老师的工作之一就是帮助所有的学生找到一个关心这个话题的理由. 这也意味着学生可以更深入地学习. 他们不只是解决家庭作业问题，他们可以找到解决方案，然后工作就完成了. 对于现实世界的问题，总是有混乱的边缘和他们可以考虑的下一步.

One of the things I like to do is find ways to let students take ownership over defining the problems they are working on. 当我教信息安全的时候, 在我的课堂上，有很多学生来这里的原因各不相同——有些人想找一份保安方面的工作, 有些人对这个话题很好奇, 有些人只需要高级选修课. I structure the course around a semester-long project where each student chooses an area of 安全 that they want to dig deeply into. 学生们想出的各种各样的项目是惊人的. One student interested in becoming a software engineer developed a portfolio of code demonstrating secure programming techniques they can use when applying for jobs. 另一名学生制作了一款游戏，旨在教其他大学生如何保护自己免遭身份盗窃. 所有人都必须将他们的项目与课程中的基本概念联系起来, 但他们都可以用不同的方式来展示他们是如何学习这些内容的. 他们都完成了有意义的项目工作，为自己的兴趣或职业道路.

我在我的人工智能入门课程中也做了类似的事情, which is designed to demystify 人工智能 and allow students to become literate consumers of claims about AI, 区分现实和炒作. 大多数学生不是CIS专业的, 所以我让他们做关于人工智能在他们研究领域应用的项目. 所以他们都在学习人工智能的输出是如何依赖于你用来训练它的数据类型的, 但他们正在研究这在心理健康诊断系统中的表现, 或者智能建筑能源优化, 或者自动化欺诈检测. 特别是这门课, 学生们常常对课程的难度感到紧张——计算机听起来很难，人工智能听起来更难. 在课程中引入体验元素有助于克服这种担忧. The new knowledge they’re gaining about AI is just a new piece they’re adding on to a subject they already have experience with. 对于第一次接触计算机课程的学生, 让每个学生建立在他们已经知道的东西上，有助于弥合与更不熟悉的内容之间的差距.

I can look back and recognize experiences at Ellis that shaped how I thought about effective teaching even before I realized I was going to become an educator. 我记得上微积分的时候. 乔治告诉我们，她要用几种不同的方式来呈现一个新概念, 能够叫出我们的名字，说“阿曼达”, 你可能不喜欢第一种思考方式, 但请稍等，因为我会按照你们接下来想看的方式来讲解.” Knowing that she thought about each of us as distinct learners and planned how she’d build a class specifically for us made it easier to trust that it would all make sense in the end. I’ve borrowed that technique from her—I said something similar to my programming class last week before presenting different ways to understand a particular coding structure. 我记得和Mr. Walker and maintaining a notebook of exercises that we could revise and resubmit as many times as needed to get the right answer—I think there were some exercises from September I was still trying to get right when April rolled around. 但很明显，我们的目标是给我们每个人足够的时间来理解材料, 如果我们必须以不同的速度前进也没关系. 现在我不仅在很多课程中使用复习法, I even wrote a paper a few years ago about the positive effects of having opportunities for revision in computer science courses. 因为我已经把计算机科学教育作为一个研究领域, 我意识到我们的澳门新葡新京官方教育设计得有多好. 在教学方面，这无疑为我对自己和他人的期望设定了一个很高的标准.

你可以为你的教育做的最好的事情之一就是培养一种好奇心. 如果我们知道当学生理解为什么某一特定知识是有用或重要的时候，他们会学得更好, then as a student you can use that to your advantage by looking for what you find meaningful in any topic you’re studying. One of the signs that an experiential learning experience has been successful to me is when a student says they forgot they were going to be graded on what they’re doing. I see students juggling so many responsibilities and it is easy to treat classwork as an item on a checklist to get done as efficiently as possible. 我明确地告诉我的人工智能和安全学生, when I introduce the projects I described above: we’ll be spending all semester on this so it is worth it for you to take some time now before the semester gets busy to find a topic that you actually care about. 希望你们都有受教育的经历，你们被邀请去掌握自己的学习. 当这种情况发生时，请深思熟虑并热情地接受邀请!