Binary Patterns in Computing Education
Speaker
Peter B. Henderson
Institute
Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering, Butler University
Time & Place
Wed, 08 Jan 2020 14:00:00 NZDT in Jack Erskine 240
Abstract
Patterns are import in many aspects of the physical, biological and abstract worlds. Mathematics is refereed to as "the study of patterns." Patterns are fundamental to computing, e.g., computational and information patterns. Much of education, at all levels, deals with understanding, discovering and apply patterns, including CS Unplugged. Foundational patterns can be used as building blocks for key computing concepts, for providing common threads between ideas, and or relating these ideas to central ideas in computing. In this preliminary discussion, we will explore how binary patterns, represented using 0's and 1's in computing, can be used in computing education. For example, binary patterns underlying all of the Representing Information activities of the CS Unplugged.
Biography
Dr. Peter B. Henderson earned his BSEE and MSEE from Clarkson College of Technology in 1965 and 1967, and earned his PhD from Princeton University in 1975. From 1974 to 1999 he had ranks of Assistant, Associate and Full Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 2000 he was recruited by Butler University, Indianapolis, IN to found and head a new department, The Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering.
For the last 15 years of his academic career, Dt. Henderson's primary interests were software engineering and computer science education. He has written and presented numerous papers/articles on these topics. For over 10 years he was the featured contributor to two columns, Math CountS in the ACM SIGCSE Inroads, and Software Engineering Education in ACM SIGSOFT Newsletter. He was also the founder, with Doug Baldwin of the Math in CS consortium, whose objective was to promote and encourage the role of mathematics in computer science and software engineering education. In that role he server on the curriculum committees for both Computer Science and Software Engineering.