A CS1 Course Designed to Address Concerns of Underrepresented Minorities (original) (raw)
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A media computation course for non-majors
ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 2003
Computing may well become considered an essential part of a liberal education, but introductory programming courses will not look like the way that they do today. Current CS1 course are failing dramatically. We are developing a new course, to be taught starting in Spring 2003, which uses computation for communication as a guiding principle. Students learn to program by writing Python programs for manipulating sound, images, and movies. This paper describes the course development and the tools developed for the course. The talk will include the first round of assessment results.
Design Process for a Contextualized Non-majors Computing Course
ABSTRACT Introduction to Media Computation is a new CS1 aimed especially at non-majors that was taught in Spring 2003 with some success. The course is contextualized around the theme of manipulating and creating media. Of the 121 students who took the course (2/3 female), only three students dropped (all male), and 89% completed the course with a grade C or better.
Computers for communication, not calculation: media as a motivation and context for learning
As the skills that constitute literacy evolve to accommodate digital media, computer science education finds itself in a sorry state. While students are more in need of computational skills than ever, computer science suffers dramatically low retention rates and a declining percentage of women and minorities. Studies of the problem point to the overemphasis in computer science classes on abstraction over application, technical details instead of usability, and the stereotypical view of programmers as loners lacking creativity. In spring 2003, Georgia Institute of Technology trialed a new course, Introduction to Media Computation, which teaches programming and computation in the context of media creation and manipulation. Students implement PhotoShop-style filters and digital video special effects, splice sounds, and search Web pages.
Initiatives, 1992
A plethora of jobs for information and communication technology professionals is predicted for the future, and female students outnumber male students in tertiary education. Nevertheless, women are significantly underrepresented in the computer science field. Stereotyping and lack of interest, encouragement, exposure, confidence, and role models are some of the factors contributing to this gender gap issue. However, most factors are actionable and these actions need to be taken to ensure the 21st century's advanced technological world does not miss out, for our society's benefit, on women's perspectives and innovative technological contributions. In recent years, there has been increasing advocacy regarding the importance of computer science (CS) and coding in our society. Due to the prevalence of computers and their application in our daily lives, and also the high demand for Information Communication and Technology (ICT) professionalsover 180,000 by 2019 in Canada (ICTC, 2016) and 1.4 million by 2020 in the U.S.A. (https://girlswhocode.com/)more people, children included, have been encouraged to get involved in the CS field. At the same time, another current movement is shedding light on a deeper issue: the CS field is male dominated. The Women in Computer Science movement advocates the importance of closing the gender gap in technology. Examples of organizations helping in this direction are https://girlswhocode.com,
Encouraging Women in CS 1: Interventional Inclusive Pedagogy in Computer Science
2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
The gender parity in the field of computer science (CS) is evident in education, workforce and research. This study, explores the introductory computer science class in an attempt to understand the low retention of women in CS. As means to encourage the retention of women in this class in the department of computer science at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, two interventions were applied to address the issue of retention of women in CS. These interventions were based on the research findings where women are more inclined to solve real world problems that can benefit mankind and that women are dependent on social networking and more inclined to share their feelings with others when compared to men. The interventions were executed by offering a Facebook discussion group among consented students in the introductory courses in addition to replacing the traditional assignments with real-life problems in Fall 2015. The participants were surveyed to examine the effect of the two interventions. Our findings concluded that building the online discussion platform and using more practical problems can potentially help increase women's interest in studying computer science. To track future research a feedback mechanism was developed that will aid in improving our approach.
2009
We describe reforms to a highly engaging algorithm-centric introductory course in media programming offered to pre-engineering students at the University of Texas at El Paso, an urban Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) as part of a required entering students program. In order to become eligible to attend the introductory programming course that begins the computer science degree plan at UTEP (“CS-1”), a large fraction of incoming freshmen must attend several semesters of preparatory “pre calculus” math courses. Most of these students will have limited if any prior exposure to programming or engineering. The initial implementation of our course was intended solely to provide an engaging first experience with programming, and followed Mark Guzdial’s “Media Computation” curriculum. Dr. Guzdial’s curriculum has successfully engaged Liberal Arts students in programming through the creation of aesthetically motivated multimedia projects. Attendees in pre-engineering and pre-professional p...
Gender equity in computer science through computing in the arts – a six-year longitudinal study
Computer Science Education, 2018
Computing in the Arts (CITA) is an interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts degree program, which integrates computer science with art theory and practice. We present a 6-year study that explores the impact of the CITA degree on broadening participation. We find that CITA attracts a different student population than traditional computer science degrees. We find that it attracts and retains almost twice as many female students as a traditional computer science degree. Finally, we find that it graduates approximately equal numbers of female and male students. The CITA curriculum maintains its strong computer science character, as it contains several core computer science courses and traditional upper-level computer science courses. We introduce the CITA curriculum model, which combines computer science courses, art courses and several structured synthesis experiences. We show that creating a CITA-like degree is fairly inexpensive, as the curriculum mostly reuses existing courses.
Encouraging women in computer science
2002
Abstract At a cost to both their own opportunities and society's ability to produce people with much-needed technical skills, women continue to be underrepresented in computer science degree programs at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Although some of the barriers that women face have their foundations in cultural expectations established well before the college level, we believe that departments can take effective steps to increase recruitment and retention of women students.