A “GRAND TOUR” OF COMPUTER SCIENCE: RE-DESIGNING CS1 FOR BREADTH AND RETENTION Natalie Linnell, Nicholas Tran, Carol Gittens: Santa Clara University

Goals of re-design  Make course function better as an elective  Improve retention, esp. women and underrepresented minorities  Give majors an idea of what CS is as a field  Intro to Computer Science, instead of Intro to Programming CS 1 (F11- S14) CS 2 (F08- S14) % of males completing the course 72%79% % of females completing the course 69%72% Timeframe% women in CS 1 (#offerings) %women in CS 2 (#offerings) %women who finish CS major F11-S1432% (13)20% (5)18% F08-S14NR18% (8)13%

Key Design Elements  Separate problem solving and syntax  Focus on breadth

Focus on breadth – “Grand tour”  “Introduction to CS,” not “Introduction to Programming”  Applied examples in lecture and lab  Physics, math, biology, psychology  Lots of collaborative active learning  Shown to improve retention of women  “Big Ideas” in Computer Science  Brief intros to: the Internet, Databases, Hardware  Societal issues, with 2 papers  Privacy, History of CS, HCI, Hacking  Fulfills Science, Technology, and Society Core requirement

Separate problem solving and syntax  Introduced new, 100-minute lab  Lab is only place C++ is used, pseudocode only in lecture  Pair programming, assigned pairs in lab  Lab is flipped  Possibility of labs in different languages  This grant allowed us to buy laptops, so we could have lab in a regular classroom  No indication of increased student time commitment

Data gathering  Programming problems  Attitudes to CS  Metacognition  Early days, but so far, indications of improved retention TermTotal enrolle d Answer ed 7/7 on Q1 Answer ed 5- 7/7 on Q1 Took at least CS2 DFWMath or Physics majors W1525 (18 took survey) 9 (50% of surveye d 36% overall) 13 (72% of surveye d 52% overall) 3 (12%) 1 (4%) W (27%) 11 (30%) 6 (16%) W (33%) 8 (27%) 3 (10%)

Next steps  Carry ideas into CS2  Multiple labs for CS1

Thanks!  Natalie Linnell:  Nicholas Tran:  Carol Gittens: