Innovations and Opportunities
in Liberal Arts Computing Education
An affiliated event at SIGCSE 2024 organized by members of the SIGCSE Committee on Computing Education in Liberal Arts Colleges. This event will let us share and learn about curricular innovations, challenges, and opportunities particular to our liberal arts settings.
Event Agenda
- Wednesday, March 20th, 2023, 9:00am - 5:00pm
- Oregon Convention Center
- Rooms B115-116
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 9:00-9:30 | Welcome and Preview of Day’s Events |
| 9:30-10:00 | BA versus BS Degrees in Computer Science |
| 10:00-10:15 | Break |
| 10:15-11:15 | Presentations on Innovations and Opportunities in Liberal Arts CS |
| 11:15-12:00 | Breakout Discussions |
| 12:00-1:30 | Lunch break (not provided) |
| 1:30-2:00 | Introduction to CS2023 and Identity-Aligned Curriculum Design and Review |
| 2:00-4:30 | Guided Sessions with “A Workbook for Distinctive Computer Science Curricula” |
| 4:30-5:00 | Debrief and Open Discussion |
| Evening | Optional dinner groups |
Additional details on specific sessions are given below.
Event organizers will collect links to content created in each session and add them to the Resulting materials page.
Session Details
-
Morning Session (9:00 AM - 12:00 PM)
- Welcome and Preview of Day’s Events (9:00 AM - 9:30 AM)
The Committee on Computing Education in Liberal Arts Colleges will discuss recent projects, including its work with CS2023. We will review the day’s events, including a brief overview of the content of the afternoon workshop session.
- BA versus BS Degrees in Computer Science (9:30 AM - 10:00 AM)
The Committee’s working group on BA/BS Degrees in CS will present their work from the past year investigating the differences between BA and BS degrees in computer science and the factors involved in deciding which degrees to offer.
- Break (10:00 AM - 10:15 AM)
- Presentations on Innovations and Opportunities in Liberal Arts CS (10:15 AM - 11:15 AM)
A Minor in Artificial Intelligence Using Liberal Arts Courses, Brian O’Neill, Quinnipiac University
Reports from Students and Instructors on a New Synthesized Pedagogical Model for CS1 in Python, Georgiana Haldeman and Margery Gardner, Colgate University
Challenges and Opportunities in Collaborating on Instructional Materials, Sebastian Dziallas and Osvaldo Jiménez, University of the Pacific
- Breakout Discussions (11:15 AM - 12:00 PM)
Session presenters will host discussion tables for continued in-depth conversation about their courses. Additional discussion tables will be hosted on topics solicited from attendees on topics of interest, which may range from considerations in course or curricular design, advising or research collaboration with students, assessment processes, recruiting and retaining faculty, future committee projects, etc.
Lunch Break (12:00 PM - 1:30 PM)
Afternoon Session (1:30 PM - 5:00 PM)
The afternoon session will focus on the Committee’s structured process for working with the new ACM/IEEE/AAAI CS2023 curriculum model. Members of the Committee will lead a workshop presenting “A Workbook for Distinctive Computer Science Curricula: Designing Programs Aligned with Liberal Arts Institutional and Departmental Identity” and its associated spreadsheet tool for exploring CS2023 content distribution recommendations. Participants will leave with an overview of the process as a whole, experience with the first few steps, and guidance about how they can take the workbook back to their home institution and begin using it for curriculum review and redesign. Feedback from this session will be used to revise the workbook further.
Participants are encouraged to have a laptop available for this work. While advance preparation is not required, you may want to have available institutional and departmental materials, such as program learning outcomes, mission statements, etc., that you may already have.
- Introduction to CS2023 and Identity-Aligned Curriculum Design and Review (1:30 PM - 2:00 PM)
- Guided Sessions with “A Workbook for Distinctive Computer Science Curricula” (2:00 PM - 4:30 PM)
- Session participants will work in small groups with facilitators to work collaboratively with the first four steps of the process workbook: Articulating Your Identity, Stating Your Design Principles, Articulating Program-Level Learning Outcomes, and Interpreting and Adapting CS2023. Sample content will illustrate results from more extensive engagement with the workbook. Workbook materials will be shared online, and participants can take the results of their work back to their home institutions for discussion or continued work.
Debrief and Open Discussion (4:30 PM - 5:00 PM)
Unless otherwise noted on an individual resource, all materials in this repository are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License