SIGCSE 2020 Pre-Symposium Event by the SIGCSE Committee on Computing Education in Liberal Arts Colleges
Contributed by Mario Nakazawa, nakazawam@berea.edu
Are you willing to facilitate this discussion? Yes
Are there any others whom you would recommend as potential facilitators for this topic?
In this day and age, many students absorb their information from online resources, and in particular social media. The algorithms that populate feeds tend to present material that confirms to the users’ previously held beliefs and discounts any data or news that causes cognitive dissonance. These platforms use these “confirmation bias embedded algorithms” for financial motives; these algorithms encourage users to stay on the platform and thus provide advertisers more “eyeballs”.
How best could a liberal arts institution work to guide students through the process of building a healthy critical thinking ability in this environment? By ignoring or not accepting the impact of computing technologies, educators in other non-CS disciplines may not be aware of a need for information/CS literacy. This discussion will focus on ways to encourage institution-wide conversation on the importance of this principle. How could CS practitioners best present a case for other disciplines to understand this need? If the need is acknowledged, how could it be implemented? If a single course in information literacy is preferred, would such a course be appropriate as required part of a general education program (equal to reading, writing, and mathematics)? Alternatively, these literacy principles be embedded in other introductory courses as a module. The goal is to gather educators with similar concerns and experience to share what has worked or to brainstorm approaches to integrate this into the academic experience of all students.