CS50 at Scale

CS50 is Harvard University's introductory course for majors and non-majors alike, a one-semester amalgam of courses generally known as CS1 and CS2. In 2007, we set out to alter the course's style and tone to resonate with those "less comfortable" and "more comfortable" alike, albeit without sacrificing the course's historical rigor. We maintained the course's underlying syllabus but revamped every problem set, providing students not only with more direction but context as well. And we augmented the course's support structure. As of Fall 2016, CS50 is Harvard's largest course with over 700 students, up from 132 in 2006, and those "less comfortable" now compose the course's largest demographic. Since 2015 has CS50 been offered in parallel at Yale University. And CS50 also exists as CS50 AP, an adaptation for high schools that satisfies the College Board's new AP CS Principles curriculum framework.

We present in this talk what we have done and why we have done it. We also look at CS50’s online counterpart, CS50x, Harvard College's first course to be offered on an even larger scale via edX with nearly 1M registrants. And we examine CS50 AP and our vision for secondary-school education.

Transcript

1. CS50 at Scale David J. Malan malan@harvard.edu University of Manchester 24 March 2017 https://speakerdeck.com/cs50/cs50-at-scale
2. 2007 CS50 at Harvard 2012 CS50x via edX 2015 CS50 for MBAs 2015 CS50 at Yale 2015 CS50 AP
3. • CS50 • 700 students at Harvard College • 150 students at Yale College • 300 students at Harvard Extension • CS50 for MBAs • 100 students at Harvard Business School • CS50x • 1M+ registrants • Kansas City, Miami, Rhode Island, St. Louis, ... • Bolivia, Burma, Chile, Netherlands, UK, Ukraine, ... • CS50 AP • 150 high schools • 5,000 students
4. • CS50 • 700 students at Harvard College • 150 students at Yale College • 300 students at Harvard Extension • CS50 for MBAs • 100 students at Harvard Business School • CS50x • 1M+ registrants • Kansas City, Miami, Rhode Island, St. Louis, ... • Bolivia, Burma, Chile, Netherlands, UK, Ukraine, ... • CS50 AP • 150 high schools • 5,000 students
5. • CS50 • 700 students at Harvard College • 150 students at Yale College • 300 students at Harvard Extension • CS50 for MBAs • 100 students at Harvard Business School • CS50x • 1M+ registrants • Kansas City, Miami, Rhode Island, St. Louis, ... • Bolivia, Burma, Chile, Netherlands, UK, Ukraine, ... • CS50 AP • 150 high schools • 5,000 students
6. • CS50 • 700 students at Harvard College • 150 students at Yale College • 300 students at Harvard Extension • CS50 for MBAs • 100 students at Harvard Business School • CS50x • 1M+ registrants • Kansas City, Miami, Rhode Island, St. Louis, ... • Bolivia, Burma, Chile, Netherlands, UK, Ukraine, ... • CS50 AP • 150 high schools • 5,000 students
18. This is CS50 cs50.harvard.edu
19. Scratch C Arrays Algorithms Memory Data Structures HTTP Machine Learning Python SQL JavaScript
20. Scratch C Arrays Algorithms Memory Data Structures HTTP Machine Learning Python SQL JavaScript
21. Scratch C Arrays Algorithms Memory Data Structures HTTP Machine Learning Python SQL JavaScript
22. Scratch C Arrays Algorithms Memory Data Structures HTTP Machine Learning Python SQL JavaScript
23. 12 weeks 8 problem sets 1 test 1 quiz 1 final project
24. Scratch C Crypto Game of Fifteen Forensics Mispellings Sentimental C$50 Finance Mashup
25. Scratch C Crypto Game of Fifteen Forensics Mispellings Sentimental C$50 Finance Mashup
26. Scratch C Crypto Game of Fifteen Forensics Mispellings Sentimental C$50 Finance Mashup
31. 2-hour lecture 90-minute section office hours
33. CS50 Puzzle Day CS50 Lunches CS50 Coding Contest CS50 Hackathon CS50 Fair
41. 50% problem sets 25% test 15% quiz 10% final project
42. correctness design style
46. This is CS50x cs50.edx.org
47. 52 weeks 8 problem sets 1 final project
48. cs50.stackexchange.com cs50x.slack.com facebook.com/cs50
 facebook.com/groups/cs50 reddit.com/r/cs50 twitter.com/cs50 ...
49. This is CS50 at Yale cs50.yale.edu
56. This is CS50 for MBAs cs50.github.io/hbs
57. Computational Thinking Programming Languages Algorithms, Data Structures Internet Technologies Web Design Cloud Computing Privacy, Security Database Design Web Programming Mobile Strategies Technology Stacks
58. This is CS50 AP cs50.harvard.edu/ap
59. 36 weeks ... 2 performance tasks 1 exam
60. Guidelines Lectures Notes Postmortems Problem Sets Seminars Shorts Slides Software Solutions Syllabus Transcripts Videos Walkthroughs …
61. CS50 Puzzle Day in a Box CS50 Hackathon in a Box CS50 Fair in a Box …
62. This is CS50 at scale
63. CS50 Appliance CS50 IDE atop Cloud9 check50, submit50 atop GitHub, Travis CI help50, style50 ...
65. accessibility community rigor
67. CS50x Puzzle Day https://www.picatic.com/cs50x-puzzle-day-2017
69. CS50 at Scale David J. Malan malan@harvard.edu University of Manchester 24 March 2017 https://speakerdeck.com/cs50/cs50-at-scale