I take a broad view of scholarship and have diverse professional interests. The following description of my scholarly activities is organized according Boyer's categorization of scholarship into the areas of the scholarship of integration, the scholarship of teaching, the scholarship of discovery, and the scholarship of application[1]. In recent years, the American Association for Higher Education and others have reorganized some of these categories [2]. Also, individuals may debate some details of these categories and their boundaries. However, I find Boyer's original categories provide a useful context, and, over the years, I believe some of my activities may be placed in each of these categories.
I believe one of my greatest strengths involves organizing disparate material into a logical framework, and then presenting that material in a coherent and clear way. Such synthesis is a vital part of both my writing and teaching. For example, in each of my seven textbooks, I have tried to provide a fresh and natural approach to material covered within an undergraduate course. Thus, An Introduction to Computing and Computer Science with Pascal was one of the very first Pascal-based textbooks to cover a full, year-long, CS1-CS2 sequence -- including all topics identified in the original Course Description for Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science (CS). The Limits of Computing continues to be one of the only books for the general public which considers in some depth both theoretical and practical constraints on what computers can do. Abstract Data Types, written with Nell Dale, breaks new ground by taking a top-down approach to ADTs, combining elements of specification, implementation, and application, using axiomatic specification and correctness as an integrative theme, and introducing both sequential and parallel algorithms.
On a smaller scale, I have developed several example-based introductions to languages or constructs for courses. For example, my introductions through annotated examples provide guidance for general programmers to the C language, the C++ language, and concurrency in C. (Under my guidance, a student of mine, Peter Broadwell, developed a similar guide to introduce sockets in C.)
I would like to think that my ability to absorb, analyze, and synthesis extensive information also has allowed me to make some contribution during each of the seven external reviews I have been asked to conduct for computer science or mathematics/computer science departments around the country.
Similarly, I hope that my ability to listen, organize, and interact has been useful in my various SIGCSE activities, leading to my work as Program Chair for SIGCSE 2000 and Symposium Chair for SIGCSE 2001. Other work requiring a broad perspective includes my being SIGCSE Secretary/Treasurer (1993-present), my involvement in two advisory committees for AP CS, and my activity in groups developing the ACM/IEEE-CS Curriculum 2001.
Teaching computer science within a small college requires a faculty member to learn and remain current in the many areas which one is called upon to teach. For myself, this list includes architecture, artificial intelligence, operating systems, programming language concepts, program verification, sequential and parallel algorithms, and the theory of computation.
Beyond this on-going professional development, I focus considerable time and effort on matters of pedagogy and curricular development. For example, since 1991, my approach for CS1 has involved lab-based collaborative learning, and I have documented the success of this approach in a published paper. More generally, I am constantly experimenting with different classroom formats and approaches, trying new combinations of team and small-group work, Web-based materials, oral presentations, and written assignments. Over the years, I have worked as PI or Co-PI on several innovative projects, with partial funding from several private foundations and from three NSF grants for curricular development and laboratory equipment. Such activities also form the basis for my regular column on Classroom Issues in the SIGCSE Bulletin.
As part of my strong interest in curricular issues, I am a long-standing member of the Liberal Arts Computer Science Consortium, originally funded by the Sloan Foundation. Over the years, this group has collaborated on a range of published papers, such as "A Revised Model Curriculum for a Liberal Arts Degree in Computer Science", which G. Michael Schneider and I facilitated and which appeared in the December 1998 Communications of the ACM. Other curricular activities include reviewing Computing Curricula 1991 by the ACM/IEEE-CS, serving as an interim assistant editor for computer science education for the Communications of the ACM, and serving on two contributing groups in the current development of Curriculum 2001 by ACM/IEEE-CS.
In a different area, I have spent considerable effort developing workshops for high school teachers to expand and refine computer science curricula at the secondary level. For example, since 1994, I have received grants from Texas Instruments, the Noyce Foundation, and the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust for 11 two-day or week-long workshops in Iowa and Texas, attended by over 250 secondary school teachers. I also serve as an on-going consultant for the College Board for AP CS, and since 1984 I have led over four dozen one-day workshops for AP CS teachers throughout the upper Midwest. Such workshops focus on a combination of technical subjects and pedagogical approaches.
Many of my activities may fall into several categories of scholarship, making it difficult to determine just which projects to list under the scholarship of discovery. This section describes some obvious research activities. My Ph.D. thesis, Equivariant CW Complexes and Cohomology, within the mathematical field of algebraic topology demonstrated one mechanism for extending the machinery of cohomology to a context where groups were acting on topological spaces. This work required the synthesis of many of the traditional topics from algebraic topology (e.g., topological spaces, simplicial complexes, CW complexes, groups, rings, functors, and homomorphisms) to a more general setting and discovered how to frame various details so they would exhibit specific, desired properties.
Similarly, my study of system administration for distributed database systems provided a unified framework for considering issues which commonly arise.
During my previous sabbatical leave, my collaboration with Nell Dale led to a new categorization of abstract data types from a user's perspective, and my experiments with collaborative pedagogies have demonstrated that such approaches allow the coverage of more material in a semester while maintaining or reducing drop-out rates from CS1 to CS2.
More recently, as part of my work as Program Chair for SIGCSE 2000, I worked with two students to design and implement a statistical study to examine the natural variability of ratings of papers by referees. Thus, as part of the reviewing process for SIGCSE 2000, each of 10 papers was sent to about 100 referees. A statistical analysis provided some overall results concerning ratings variance, as well as the possible influence on scores of such factors as referee gender, subject familiarity, country of residence, role as both referee and author, and involvement in a group of referees. Additional analysis indicated the relative importance of such factors as technical content, writing, originality, and significance in the overall ratings. The students will present several conclusions at a poster at the ACM International Student Poster Contest at SIGCSE 2000, and a paper is planned for publication.
In addition to applying computer science principles, algorithms, and methodologies to solve a variety of problems, I am quite proud that I have been able to include some of my students in fundamental ways in several of my activities. One large and on-going effort focuses on the placement of incoming students into mathematics and computer science courses. The placement problem is one faced by virtually every college and university, and my interest has been to use techniques of artificial intelligence to help automate the problem. Thus, in 1994, two students and I developed an effective expert system for this task, leading to a joint publication. That system rivaled the faculty in making appropriate placements, and subsequent refinements to the system perform better than most faculty. An interface to this program is now available at http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~walker/placement/placement-form.html for use by prospective students. More recently, I have worked with two additional students to explore the use of neural networks to address the same problem. While additional refinements are planned, the current results are promising.
Also, as suggested above, when I was asked to take on the responsibility of Program Chair for SIGCSE 2000 and Symposium Chair for SIGCSE 2001, I actively sought ways to include students in my work. With strong encouragement from the SIGCSE 2000 Symposium Co-Chairs, two student and I therefore developed a Web-based process for the on-line submission and reviewing of papers for that symposium. While some existing systems provided some needed capabilities, a new system was needed to handle papers in html and to interface with the SIGCSE database of referees. Also, as noted under the "Scholarship of Discovery" category, the students and I designed and completed procedures and supporting software to analyze the natural variability of ratings of papers by reviewers. This has led to a student poster in the ACM International Student Poster Contest at SIGCSE 2000. A subsequent, co-authored paper for publication also is anticipated.
Boyer, Ernest L., Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Jossey-Bass, Inc. Publishers, 1990.
Eighth AAHE Conference on Faculty Roles and Rewards, February 3-6, 2000, American Association for Higher Education, Call for Proposals and Participation, http://www.aahe.org/aaheffrr/ and http://www.aahe.org/aaheffrr/emphases.htm .
This document is available on the World Wide Web as
http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~walker/scholarship-statement.html
created February 29, 2000
last revised February 29, 2000