Computing Fellows Program: Increasing Meaningful Computing Engagement Across Disciplines

Barnard College, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to serve the national interest by providing computing fellowships to increase opportunities for meaningful computing engagement across all disciplines. The low rate of participation of women and underrepresented groups in computing negatively impacts the diversity and robustness of the computing workforce. This issue also lowers the level of technical innovation in other disciplines. In order to address this issue, the project will develop computing fellowships and study their effectiveness. The Fellows in this project will work with students and faculty in courses of science, humanities, and the arts to incorporate computing activities in classes and support student learning. The project aims to lower the barrier of entry to computing while raising student confidence and interest. This project has the potential to raise the computing abilities, interest, and self-efficacy of students in all fields, to attract more women to computing, and to increase diversity to the computing workforce. The project will adopt and adapt an evidence-based peer and near-peer learning to promote self-efficacy, a sense of belonging, and engaged student learning. The project will include rigorous research to establish proof of concept and evaluation for continuous improvement. Peer and near-peer mentoring and engaging computing experiences in introductory courses have been shown to have a positive impact on the recruitment, engagement, and retention of women in computing. The PIs will use a mixed research method to increase the understanding of the effectiveness of these evidence-based practices in the proposed computing fellowship project. The project results will be disseminated through publications in journals and academic conferences of computing. The project has the potential to be a national model that can guide other institutions interested in creating similar computing fellowships. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.