Teaching an Introductory Programming Course to Non-Computer Science Majors Using SageMath

Abstract

In this paper we propose an introduction to programming course using SageMath for non-Computer Science majors. A course outline on developing and designing the course is briefly presented. Given the large number of packages available in SageMath, such a course could easily be tweaked to match the need of a diverse student population, whether it is dominated by students majoring in Mathematics, Data Science, Computer Science, Information Technology, or a mix of these. We also include some course evaluation results from the first iteration of the course.

Keywords

• CS 0,CS 0.5,non-major courses,SageMath,Python,introductory programming language,first-year computing

References

1. Bard, G.V., Sage for undergraduates (online version), http://www.gregorybard.com/sage.html, retrieved Dec. 2018.
2. Cass, S., The 2018 top programming languages, https://spectrum.ieee.org, 2017.
3. Davis, J., 5 top languages for machine learning, data science, https://www.informationweek.com, retrieved Dec. 2018.
4. Gaddis, T., Starting Out with Python (4th Edition), 2017.
5. Guo, P., Python is now the most popular introductory teaching language at top U.S. universities, https://cacm.acm.org, retrieved Dec. 2018.
6. Jochen, M., Introduction to computer programming course syllabus - fall 2012, http://quantum.esu.edu/~mjochen/Teaching/CPSC130/12f/, 2012.
7. Lutz, M., Learning Python, 5th Edition, O'Reilly Media, 2013.
8. Puget, J.F., The most popular language for machine learning is..., https://www.ibm.com, retrieved Dec. 2018.

9. Rufinus, J. and Kortsarts, Y., Teaching an introductory programming course for non-majors using Python, In Proc ISECON, v22 (ColumbusOH), 2005.
10. Stein, W.A. et al., Sage quickstart for statistics, http://doc.sagemath.org, retrieved Dec. 2018.
11. Stein, W.A. et al., SageMath - open-source mathematical software system, http://www.sagemath.org, retrieved Dec. 2018.
12. Voskoglou, C., What is the best programming language for machine learning?, https://towardsdatascience.com, retrieved Dec. 2018.
13. Zelle, J., Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science, 3rd Ed., Franklin, Beedle & Associates, 2016.
14. Zimmermann, P. et al., Computational mathematics with SageMath, http://www.sagemath.org, retrieved Dec. 2018.