Message from ACM India Council Secretary Venkatesh Raman
May 25, 2022
Message from ACM India Council Secretary Venkatesh Raman
Dear ACM member colleagues,
Greetings. I hope that all of you professional members eligible to vote have done so in the ongoing election for ACM India council 2022. If not, please check india.acm.org to find out about the candidates, their bios and statements, and how to vote.
I would also like to use this opportunity to explain a sample of initiatives ACM-India has been doing on the education front.
CSPathshala is an ACM-India initiative to inculcate computational thinking in schools. It is based on the philosophy that computational thinking is much more than the ability to use computers, and can be taught even without the use of computers. The CSPathshala team has created content for grades 1–8, and has trained hundreds of teachers who have been implementing this curriculum in schools with great success. Recently it launched an annual conference, CTiS (Computational Thinking in Schools), whose fourth edition is going to be held July 8–9 at: https://event.india.acm.org/CTiS/. This provides a forum for school teachers engaged in computational thinking to share their knowledge and network with other teachers.
On the higher educational front, our country has a spectrum of institutions ranging from those primarily engaged in research to those primarily engaged in teaching, with a large number of institutions falling somewhere in between. While those engaged in research often complain about their ability (or lack thereof) to attract quality students, we noticed that most undergraduate students have very little knowledge about research careers or the kind of research practised in Indian institutions. To address this, ACM-India initiated summer schools six years ago. These are two-to-three-week long schools devoted to cutting-edge topics and lectured by experts from leading institutes and industries. They give an opportunity to students—primarily from aspiring colleges—to get exposed to these topics and experts and to different pedagogical methodologies as well as getting hands-on experience with problems and experiments. The success of these schools inspired us to start winter schools two years back. We are happy to see that some of the participants in these schools have been inspired to pursue research as a career.
To address the shortage of quality teachers (due to the supply-demand issue in computer science), ACM-India initiated a new teaching partnership program (TPP) whereby expert teachers from leading institutions partner with the faculty of aspiring colleges in the regular offering of core or elective courses. Apart from giving a few lectures, they work with the local faculty on content, delivery and assessment throughout the offering of the course. While the students and the teacher get exposed to different pedagogical experience, the experts also gain first-hand understanding of the pressures and constraints faced by the colleges.
ACM-India's Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (iSIGCSE) runs an annual conference, COMPUTE, devoted to education related issues like pedagogy, assessment, and curriculum. The upcoming edition (https://event.india.acm.org/Compute/) will be available in November 2022. iSIGCSE also organises regular education webinars and other events targeting educators and students.
As a professional member, you can engage in all these initiatives as a faculty mentor, a volunteer, or a participant. These initiatives are based on the constant dialogue the council members have with members like you.
Here is a request again to cast your vote so that we will have a truly representative council who can continue all these excellent initiatives.
Cheers,
Venkatesh RamanSecretary/Treasurer, ACM-India Council 2020-2022
