Computer Science Curriculum Design, Base Skill Sets, and the Engaged Learner

In computer science, the field's base skills set is constantly expanding, and my research in computer science curriculum design reveals one core challenge attendant on that fact: how best to create an undergraduate program that remains deliverable while ensuring successful learning of a sufficient number of fundamental concepts? My teaching practice utilizes a combination of formal lecture, hands-on exercises, and lab sessions, providing students with the opportunity to learn and implement concepts in increasingly self-directed and complex ways. As an example of formal lecture, we will investigate collection classes in Python, demonstrating the foundational concept of aggregate variables, including lists, tuples, dictionaries, and sets.