Board 243: CS Frontiers: Module 4—A Software Engineering Curriculum for High School Females

Veronica M. Catete; Isabella Gransbury; Marnie Hill; Devin Jean; Brian Broll; Akos Ledeczi; Tiffany Michelle Barnes; Shuchi Grover

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Conference: 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Baltimore , Maryland
Publication Date: June 25, 2023
Start Date: June 25, 2023
End Date: June 28, 2023
Conference Session: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Tagged Topics: Diversity and NSF Grantees Poster Session
Page Count: 6
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--42686
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/42686
Download Count: 157

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Tiffany Barnes is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at North Carolina State University, and a Distinguished Member of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). Prof. Barnes is Founding Co-Director of the STARS Computing Corps, a Broadening Participation in Computing Alliance funded by the U.S.A. National Science Foundation. Her internationally recognized research program focuses on transforming education with AI-driven learning games and technologies, and research on equity and broadening participation. Her current research ranges from investigations of intelligent tutoring systems and teacher professional development to foundational work on educational data mining, computational models of interactive problem-solving, and design of computational thinking curricula. Her personalized learning technologies and broadening participation programs have impacted thousands of K-20 students throughout the United States.

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Shuchi Grover

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Abstract

Computer Science (CS) Frontiers is a 4-module curriculum, 9 weeks each, designed to bring the frontiers of computing to high school girls for exploration and development. Our prior work has showcased the work in developing and piloting our first three modules, Distributed Computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT). During the summer of 2022, we piloted the completed curricula, including the new Software Engineering module, with 56 high school camp attendees. This poster reports on the newly developed software engineering module, the experiences of 7 teachers and 11 students using the module, and our plans for improving this module prior to its release in formal high school classrooms. Initial survey and interview data indicate that teachers became comfortable with facilitating the open-endedness of the final projects and that students appreciated the connections to socially relevant topics and the ability of their projects to help with real-world problems such as flood prevention and wheelchair accessibility. The CS Frontiers curriculum has been added to course offerings in Tennessee and adoption through the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction is currently underway. Teachers from Tennessee, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and New York have piloted the materials. Together with researchers, we are working to package the course and curricula for widespread adoption as additional support to students as they try out computing courses in their high school pathways. Our aim is to increase the interest and career awareness of CS for high school girls so they may have an equitable footing to choose CS as a potential major or career.

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Catete, V. M., & Gransbury, I., & Hill, M., & Jean, D., & Broll, B., & Ledeczi, A., & Barnes, T. M., & Grover, S. (2023, June), Board 243: CS Frontiers: Module 4—A Software Engineering Curriculum for High School Females Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--42686