Critical Thinking 01: Consulting with an Expert

Small Group, Due: 2025 Oct 28, 11:59pm

This critical thinking assignment is designed to encourage you to understand and apply a skill to different areas of your life. You are to work in a small group of no more than three.

You will have your own fork of a repo with a single readme.md file. Simply edit this file. Only one person in your group is required to submit anything. Just be sure to include everyone's full name in the readme.md.

Requirements

In a small group of no more than three, choose a person from the Consulting an Expert Google Sheet (write your full names next to chosen person) and then research that person and write a response to each of the points listed below. Full credit will go to responses that use good grammar, are well thought out, and construct an argument using sufficient evidence. I have no hard rule on length; use as many words as necessary and no more. Remember: your job is to convince me that you know what you are talking about!

The list contains pioneers/experts in the field of computer science or mathematics—the "parent" of CS—who have made a significant contribution towards computing or understanding computation. Note: The list does not have many prominent figures in CS (e.g., Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Douglas Engelbart) who have pushed for the popularity of computers or advanced human-computer interaction (HCI) rather than directly contributing to understanding computation.

Do some research into your chosen expert and their area of expertise. Find out who the pioneer is and how they have contributed to the field of CS. You must use at least 3 different resources (wikipedia may count as at most one), where at least one resource must be printed / published (e.g., book or journal article, but not a random Internet source). Note: it is OK if the article was originally printed but you can only access digital copy. I would suggest using the library :)

1. Write a short summary on what you have uncovered about the pioneer and about the pioneer's area of expertise. In particular, touch specifically on how their advances have improved computation and society as a whole.

2. Write how you might use this newfound understanding to your advantage in the future.

3. Write three good questions that you would ask the pioneer if you had the chance.

4. Properly cite your ≥3 sources! MLA standard.

5. Who did you use as experts during your research? How did they help you? What questions did you ask them?

Tips

You do not need to clone your fork. Instead, you can edit the readme.md file directly in the browser by clicking on the readme.md file, click the blue Edit button at the top, then click Edit single file.

Submission

Once you have completed the assignment requirements, simply stage, commit, and push your changes to the CSE GitLab. Note: you do not need to do these if you edit through the browser.

Do NOT submit anything to the course Brightspace page.

Grading Rubric