Award Abstract # 1935061
CUE Ethics: Collaborative Research: Evaluating Frameworks for Incorporating Computing Across the Curriculum

NSF Org: CNS
Division Of Computer and Network Systems
Recipient: TRUSTEES OF UNION COLLEGE IN THE TOWN OF SCHENECTADY IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Initial Amendment Date: August 22, 2019
Latest Amendment Date: August 22, 2019
Award Number: 1935061
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: jeffrey forbes
CNS
 Division Of Computer and Network Systems
CSE
 Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering
Start Date: February 1, 2020
End Date: July 31, 2022 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $76,338.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $76,338.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2019 = $76,338.00
History of Investigator:
  • Kristina Striegnitz (Principal Investigator)
    striegnk@union.edu
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Union College
807 UNION ST
SCHENECTADY
NY  US  12308-3256
(518)388-6101
Sponsor Congressional District: 20
Primary Place of Performance: Union College
NY  US  12308-3103
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
20
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): HE9HQBNZHHB5
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): IUSE
Primary Program Source: 01001920DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
04001920DB NSF Education & Human Resource
Program Reference Code(s):
Program Element Code(s): 199800
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.070

ABSTRACT

This award will test pathways for the delivery of computing across the curriculum in the context of undergraduate degrees at residential liberal arts colleges. The project will be organized as a Networked Improvement Community (NIC) that includes faculty from three colleges representing 10 distinct disciplines, as well as the heads of computer science and data science or data analytics at all three institutions. The multi-institutional NIC will provide an important opportunity for the project team to determine the most effective methods for delivering computer science (CS) content and working with non-CS faculty across a range of institutional governance and departmental structural differences. This project addresses the national desire to prepare larger and more diverse student populations for careers in both CS and non-CS fields, including careers in scientific and non-scientific disciplines.

Project activities are five-fold. First, the project will identify a set of core computing concepts that should be learned by every student today, particularly those students who are applying computing in non-CS fields. Second, it will rigorously evaluate the relative effectiveness of venues, including curriculum and course structure, for exposing students to the core computing concepts. Third, the project will analyze the kind and extent of preparation, guidance, and support necessary for non-CS faculty to incorporate and teach computing concepts in their courses. Fourth, it will analyze the extent to which the addition of computing concept material impacts student acquisition of disciplinary knowledge in non-CS courses. Lastly, it will analyze the impact on affiliated non-CS faculty with regard to their own teaching and research as they learn more about computing, and work collaboratively with other non-CS faculty on integration of computing into courses. By including fields that are more demographically diverse than CS, the researchers expect to broaden the pool of students who learn about computing and its applications. By integrating ethical considerations into the teaching of core computing concepts from the start, it is expected that students will learn to naturally ask ethical questions as part of their computational problem solving instead of as an afterthought. Finally, the project will develop a guiding document for similar institutions on how to effectively infuse core computing concepts across an institution in a "computing across the curriculum" approach. This IUSE: CUE project is co-funded by the EHR/DUE and all CISE Directorates CNS, CCF, IIS, and OAC, reflecting the project's alignment with the broader goals of the IUSE: EHR program in DUE and complementary programs in CISE.

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.

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.

CUE Ethics: Evaluating Frameworks for Incorporating Computing Across the Curriculum has been a collaboration between computer science (CS) faculty at Mount Holyoke College, Colby College, and Union College.  Computational methods are increasingly ubiquitous and important in many disciplines.  Therefore, all students, regardless of their major, need to gain proficiency in the computational methods used in their discipline in order to become effective contributors to their field.  Usually the only exposure non-CS students have to computing is through courses in their own discipline that use computing.  The grant team's goal was to develop a method that ensures students using computing in non-CS courses develop an understanding of the underlying core computing concepts and gain transferable knowledge and skills that will enable future computational activities.  This approach also increases the diversity of the student population exposed to computing during their undergraduate experience. 

 

The team worked with faculty from the sciences, social sciences, and mathematics to first determine the role of computing in non-CS courses, and then identified the underlying core computing concepts that support disciplinary computing usage.  Using this information, the grant team developed a video suite (https://nsf-cue-frameworks.github.io/www/videos.html) focused on core computing concepts that non-CS faculty could incorporate into their course materials.  The videos introduce and explain the concepts and illustrate them in two popular programming languages, Python and R.  Subsequently, a summer workshop gave faculty an opportunity to discuss in cross-campus disciplinary teams how best to use the video resources in their courses, considering both in-class, lab, and homework activities.  The videos were then included in multiple non-CS courses at the three institutions during the academic year 2021-2022.  

 

While the pandemic made it difficult to do the full scope of student assessment that was originally planned, feedback from faculty and students indicates that both groups found the video resource useful.  The participating faculty reported in interviews that the videos motivated them to reflect on how they teach computing concepts in their courses and provided them with a consistent language for talking about computing in their courses.  They perceived the videos to be helpful to their students in learning computing concepts.  Faculty overwhelmingly indicated that they will continue to use the videos in subsequent offerings of their courses.  Student assessment results indicate that over 90% of the students who watched at least some of the videos rated their helpfulness for understanding the computing concepts introduced in the class as 3 or higher on a 6-point Likert scale (from 1/helped not at all to 6/helped very much).  In addition, we were able to verify that, by introducing computing concepts in non-CS courses, a broader group of students can be reached than through traditional CS courses alone. Over 2/3 of the students in the non-CS courses that used our videos had not taken any CS courses before (either in college or in high school).  

 

Though this was a short project, it allowed for the development of a replicable process for distilling core concepts, and through the development of a video library it achieved the goal of providing support for teaching computing concepts in non-CS courses without requiring non-CS faculty to make significant changes to their own course structure and content.  The project's assessment gathered evidence that incorporating computing concepts in non-CS courses broadens the student population exposed to computing during their undergraduate experience and that the proposed approach is perceived as helpful by both faculty and students.  This has positioned the project team to consider future work that will further assess the usefulness of the existing video library as well as supplement it with additional material that focuses on uses of computing in the arts and humanities.


Last Modified: 12/14/2022
Modified by: Kristina Striegnitz

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