@inproceedings{prasad-davis-2024-training-nlp,
    title = "Training an {NLP} Scholar at a Small Liberal Arts College: A Backwards Designed Course Proposal",
    author = "Prasad, Grusha  and
      Davis, Forrest",
    editor = {Al-azzawi, Sana  and
      Biester, Laura  and
      Kov{\'a}cs, Gy{\"o}rgy  and
      Marasovi{\'c}, Ana  and
      Mathur, Leena  and
      Mieskes, Margot  and
      Weissweiler, Leonie},
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the Sixth Workshop on Teaching NLP",
    month = aug,
    year = "2024",
    address = "Bangkok, Thailand",
    publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
    url = "https://preview.aclanthology.org/jlcl-multiple-ingestion/2024.teachingnlp-1.16/",
    pages = "105--118",
    abstract = "The rapid growth in natural language processing (NLP) over the last couple yearshas generated student interest and excitement in learning more about the field. In this paper, we present two types of students that NLP courses might want to train. First, an {\textquotedblleft}NLP engineer{\textquotedblright} who is able to flexibly design, build and apply new technologies in NLP for a wide range of tasks. Second, an {\textquotedblleft}NLP scholar{\textquotedblright} who is able to pose, refine and answer questions in NLP and how it relates to the society, while also learning to effectively communicate these answers to a broader audience. While these two types of skills are not mutually exclusive {---} NLP engineers should be able to think critically, and NLP scholars should be able to build systems {---} we think that courses can differ in the balance of these skills. As educators at Small Liberal Arts Colleges, the strengths of our students and our institution favors an approach that is better suited to train NLP scholars. In this paper we articulate what kinds of skills an NLP scholar should have, and then adopt a backwards design to propose course components that can aid the acquisition of these skills."
}