Workshops Supporting the Development of a Workbook for Liberal Arts Computing Programs

Siena University, Loudonville NY

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to serve the national interest by hosting a series of workshops for faculty, organized around a curriculum design workbook that supports curricular innovation in computing programs at liberal arts colleges. The workbook is informed by literature on curriculum design and analysis of trends in liberal arts curriculum innovation. It guides programs through a process of aligning their curriculum with their unique mission, identity, diversity and inclusion goals, and institutional contexts, while being informed by the forthcoming ACM/IEEE/AAAI CS2023 curriculum guidelines. Workshops will be held at the Association of Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) 2024 Technical Symposium, allowing participation by all interested educators, and at as many regional Consortium of Computing Sciences in Colleges (CCSC) conferences as possible to broaden outreach to faculty with more limited travel resources. The workshops will provide an important component of dissemination and engagement with the liberal arts computing education community. The workshops will also serve to improve the curriculum design workbook utilizing a novel method of iterative workbook design and identification of best practices for using the workbook’s process. The workbook will broadly impact innovative curricular design at liberal arts-focused institutions. This will, in turn, impact the students who will complete computing programs with innovative curricula. These students will help to fill the Nation’s needs for a workforce trained in technical skills grounded in a strong liberal arts foundation. The NSF IUSE: EDU 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.