| NSF Org: |
DUE Division Of Undergraduate Education |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | July 19, 2017 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 19, 2017 |
| Award Number: | 1712406 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Paul Tymann
DUE Division Of Undergraduate Education EDU Directorate for STEM Education |
| Start Date: | August 15, 2017 |
| End Date: | July 31, 2021 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $218,556.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $218,556.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
300 COLLEGE PARK AVE DAYTON OH US 45469-0001 (937)229-3232 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
300 College Park Dayton OH US 45469-0800 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | IUSE |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.076 |
ABSTRACT
"Engaged Student Learning: Re-conceptualizing and Evaluating a Core Computer Science Course for Active Learning and STEM Student Success" is a collaborative project that addresses the critical need to prepare students for the contemporary information technology landscape. The project will develop a new operating systems (OS) course that will play a central role in the curriculum of computer science and engineering undergraduate degree programs. The new course will resolve significant issues of misalignment between existing computer science courses on operating systems and employee professional skills and knowledge requirements. It has the potential to better engage students in active learning, create computer science learning environments that improve student-learning outcomes, and broaden participation in STEM education and employment. It will serve national interests by preparing students more effectively for post-baccalaureate employment where expertise in distributed mobile and parallel computation, big data analytics, and cybersecurity is increasingly necessary and in demand.
The goals of this project are threefold. First, it will design a contemporary operating systems curriculum and pedagogy model that incorporates cybersecurity, mobile OS and the Internet of Things, concurrent programming and synchronization, cloud computing and big data processing, Second, the project will evaluate the effect of the model on student learning, retention, growth, and job placement, as well as faculty and STEM/CS education research community engagement. Third, it will build a community of practice among computer science faculty at multiple institutions that adopt or adapt the model for their own academic contexts. Materials and results will be shared with the faculty community of practice continuously to help improve the program. Improvement will be measured along multiple dimensions, including student learning and retention. The project will produce content, laboratories, and culminating active-learning project designs of the model and a set of guidelines and tradeoffs, based on the results of model evaluation, to ensure that the model is transferable and replicable.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Project Website: https://sites.udayton.edu/operatingsystems/
The overarching goal of this NSF-funded IUSE project was to resolve the misalignment among a common university-level computer science course on operating systems and actual student needs for academic and professional success. The project sought to better align: the current content/pedagogy of the undergraduate operating systems (OS) course in computer science (CS) degree programs; the transformed landscape of modern computing platforms; and active, student-centered learning that is well-demonstrated to improve student engagement and learning.
The project involved three objectives:
Objective 1: Explore this research issue by designing a contemporary model of operating system curriculum and related pedagogy that involves three progressive modules, which involve team-oriented, active learning labs and exercises, thereby blending the boundaries of a lecture and laboratory.
Objective 2: Execute a research plan to evaluate the effect of the model on a variety of important factors including student identity, confidence, competence, learning, retention, and job placement.
Objective 3: Build a community of practice among computer science faculty at multiple institutions that adopt or adapt the model, or elements thereof, for their own programs and students.
The outcomes of this project have been:
1. A model for OS curriculum and related pedagogy organized into four progressive content modules, each of which include active-learning laboratory plans. The model is packaged as an open-source OS course laboratory manual available and hosted in an open-access repository that has been published and shared with CS educators. The OS laboratory manual is available at: https://bitbucket.org/saverioperugini/operating-systems-lab-manual/.
2. A set of research outcomes based on the results of our experiments evaluating the model that indicate the degree of improvement in a variety of metrics (e.g., student identity, engagement, competence) to be expected from adoption of the model, thus making the model transferable and replicable.
The specific hypothesis of this research was that student identity as computer scientists is correlated with improved engagement/confidence, which, in turn, is correlated with improved performance as measured against an external measure of competence.
As a result of this project, we have produced and evaluated a model for OS curriculum and related pedagogy that promotes student identity as computer scientists and improved student competence and performance. We sought to measure correlations between student identify, engagement/confidence, and competence.
Our research results indicate that use of our re-conceptualized course model significantly increased measures of student identity between the first day and last day of the operating systems courses which employed the model. Moreover, we found a significant correlation between student identity as a computer scientist and student engagement and competence. We also found a significant correlation between student engagement and student competence. Student feedback confirmed clear preferences for the active learning opportunities as the most effective way for them to learn and also included suggestions for module improvements.
3. The project fostered the development of a community of practice consisting of faculty members from CS departments interested in improved OS curricula and pedagogy. Members of the community have met both virtually and physically at national and international conferences, workshops, tutorials, and other meetings throughout the duration of the project to both plan and facilitate the widespread adoption of the model, or modules thereof, and foster continuous improvement and community engagement.
Our project has also resulted in outcomes of broader impact:
- We have revitalized a core CS middle-level course and its pedagogy that engage computer science and engineering students in advanced learning.
- We have provided means for broad adoption and utilization of the re-conceptualized model, or modules thereof, at other institutions seeking to improve students measure of success and their own computer science curricula.
- We have widened curricular pathways that can broaden participation in STEM education and employment.
- We have expanded both faculty awareness and participation, and CS curricular innovation, beyond the introductory CS courses.
Last Modified: 11/26/2021
Modified by: Saverio Perugini
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