Summer camp is a hit with students
It's rare that students like a course so much they want to share it with others. That's exactly what happened when a group of CCIS students offered a pared-down version of the popular freshman curriculum to middle- and high-school students last summer.
The freshman curriculum, based on Trustee Professor Matthias Fellseisen's acclaimed Teach Scheme! program, eliminates the details of syntax from introductory computing lessons and jumps right into programming as problem solving. The program is used at hundreds of high schools and colleges around the world, including Rice University, Brown University, and the University of Chicago.
Dubbing themselves Teachgroup, the CCIS students adapted TeachScheme! to create the one-week Compass Computer Camps. Led by Rachel Mark, '03, and Christopher Burns, '04, CCIS students taught eighth through eleventh graders to design and implement simple arcade games and common computer science puzzles like the eight queens puzzle. The camp was supported by several CCSI alumni.
"The program was a tremendous success. Students were very excited about it," says Leslie Schneider, who served as an adviser to the students. "The class was originally supposed to run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., but students got so involved they ended up staying until 5 or 5:30."
"Teaching at Compass Camps was a very rewarding experience," said Mike MacHenry, '04, a member of Teachgroup. "It was a lot of fun for the undergraduates to share their enthusiasm with the campers. It was also a very good learning experience for the teachers. Nothing reinforces a topic one has learned quite like teaching it to someone else."