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A Computational Introduction to STEM Studies

Abstract We report on the content and early evaluation of a new introductory programming course “Media Propelled Computational Thinking,” (abbreviated MPCT and pronounced iMPaCT). MPCT is integrated into a freshman-level entering students program that aims at retaining students by responding to the academic recruitment and attrition challenges of computer science and other STEM disciplines.This course is intended to provide meaningful experiences of relevance to students choosing majors that also fortifies their qualitative understandings of foundational math and physics concepts. MPCT‟s activities are designed to provide analytical challenges typical of STEM professions and to motivate additional inquiry. Preliminary evaluation results are encouraging – students from a wide range of academic majors find MPCT engaging and report that the analytical tasks were effective at conveying insight and decreasing anxiety towards foundational mathematical concepts. This paper extends prior reports on MPCT with evaluation results indicating that more than half of attendees indicated increased confidence in the understanding and application of quantitative analysis tasks and detected differences in that nature of students‟ engagement with math in MPCT and traditional math courses. In addition, this report includes an overview of an emerging effort to investigate the integration of MPCT into secondary school curricula. Introduction MPCT is integrated into an Entering Students Program (ESP) [4] attended by entering freshmen at the University of Texas at El Paso, a primarily Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) serving an economically disadvantaged bi-national urban area on the US-Mexico border. The objective of the entering students program is to assist students in developing skills necessary for academic success in college and to assist in career selection. MPCT, which is allocated approximately half of the course‟s instructional time, provides technical content to complement the entering students program‟s curriculum that reviews study, note-taking, presentation, and writing skills, and career guidance. Introductory courses for technical disciplines such as computer science can offer a limited curriculum representing a discipline‟s activities. Activities and projects of introductory computing curriculum designed to attract students generally focus on the dramatic outcomes of tasks whose programming challenges are frequently more clerical than analytical. Consider the voluminous specification required to generate the detailed choreography of a robotic dance (without regards for physics). While the graphical outcomes of these projects are impressive, and the specification of these moves may provide may provide useful practice of coding skills, we have concern that the technical tasks have little similarity with analytically intense academic coursework typical of computer science and other STEM disciplines. We have encountered students who enjoy analytical work and enjoyed a high-school program based on Alice who ultimately chose to study non-computational disciplines because they found the detail-work associated with the dramatic projects mundane. MPCT‟s design reflects an understanding that effective career selection includes a matching both of practitioners‟ natural inclinations (proclivities) and aptitudes with the principal activities required for a profession. MPCT‟s activities are designed to provide analytical challenges typical of STEM professions and to motivate additional inquiry. MPCT‟s design is substantially motivated by observations that students‟ perceptions of and deficiencies in mathematics both contribute substantially to avoidance of and attrition from study of computer science and other STEM disciplines. MPCT exploits programmed systems‟ facility at manipulating computation to

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Freudenthal, E., & Gonzalez, R., & Hug, S., & Ogrey, A., & Roy, M. K., & Siegel, A. (2010, June), A Computational Introduction To Stem Studies Paper presented at 2010 Annual Conference & Exposition, Louisville, Kentucky. 10.18260/1-2--16325