Harvard Professor: CS50, What Matters More Than CS, Lecturing Well | David J Malan
From The Peterman Pod by Ryan Peterman
May 11, 2026 ยท 1h 4m
About this episode
David J Malan discusses the evolution of CS50, effective lecturing techniques, and the impact of AI on computer science education.
David Malan is a Harvard professor known for turning CS50 into a popular online computer science course. We discussed the story behind CS50, how to lecture well, and how AI is changing CS education including in cheating/academic dishonesty. โข My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/ ๐ฃ๐ผ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐๐ ๐น๐ถ๐ป๐ธ๐: โข YouTube: https://youtu.be/bB2o81DnKHk โข Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835 โข Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/harvard-professor-cs50-what-matters ๐ง๐ต๐ฎ๐ป๐ธ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐๐ผ ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ ๐ฒ๐ฝ๐ถ๐๐ผ๐ฑ๐ฒ'๐ ๐๐ฝ๐ผ๐ป๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐ ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ ๐๐๐ฝ๐ฝ๐ผ๐ฟ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐บ๐ ๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐ธ: โข Cursor 3: a unified workspace for building software with agents, check it out at https://cursor.com/ โข WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at https://workos.com/ ๐ง๐ถ๐บ๐ฒ๐๐๐ฎ๐บ๐ฝ๐: 0:00 - Intro 1:09 - Getting into computer science 3:27 - Becoming the professor of CS50 11:19 - How to lecture well 14:25 - Depth vs engagement in education 18:11 - Why don't we consolidate educational resources 23:20 - Why start with Cโฆ
People in this episode
Host: Ryan Peterman
Guest: David J Malan
Topics covered
- computer science
- education
- lecturing
- AI in education
- academic dishonesty
- CS50
Keywords
- CS50
- David J Malan
- computer science
- lecturing
- AI
- education
- academic dishonesty
Sponsors
Cursor, WorkOS
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Harvard
Products: CS50, AI
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