Since 1986 at the University of Oregon, a curriculum utilizing Scheme as the programming language in introductory courses for undergraduate computer science majors has been able to address a wide range of basic issues. From this experience, two fundamental difficulties in teaching the curriculum to liberal arts students has been identified: i) the predominantly preengineering emphasis of available texts, and ii) a lack of adequate instructional software support. As a result, a concept-oriented curriculum and associated Macintosh-based software environment is being developed. Students explore notions of recursion and abstraction as well as complexity and correctness. Experience with applications of these ideas is achieved through lab assignments on such topics as computer music, color graphics, simple animation, interactive interfaces, and large-scale program modification. All on-line course materials are being developed as MacScheme, ParcPlace Smalltalk, or MetCom Modula-2 programs and Hypercard stacks. The lab will contain Macintosh lIci and llfx personal workstations networked with a Sun SPARCserver for file management and print services. Video equipment is being used as a tool for presentation and preservation of lectures and results of lab assignments.
