Fagen-Ulmschneider, W., & Heeren, C., & Herman, G. L., & West, M. (2015, June), Re-engineering an "Introduction to Computing" Course within a College-Wide Community of Practice  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.24640

\bibitem{asee_peer_24640}
  Fagen-Ulmschneider, W., \& Heeren, C., \& Herman, G. L., \& West, M. (2015, June), \emph{Re-engineering an "Introduction to Computing" Course within a College-Wide Community of Practice}
  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington.
  10.18260/p.24640

Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider, Cinda Heeren, Geoffrey L. Herman, and Matthew West.  "Re-engineering an "Introduction to Computing" Course within a College-Wide Community of Practice".  2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2015.  https://strategy.asee.org/24640 Internet.  28 May, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_24640}
  Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider, Cinda Heeren, Geoffrey L. Herman, and Matthew West.
  "Re-engineering an "Introduction to Computing" Course within a College-Wide Community of Practice".
  \emph{2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2015.
  https://strategy.asee.org/24640 Internet.  28 May, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_24640
author = "Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider, Cinda Heeren, Geoffrey L. Herman, and Matthew West"
title = "Re-engineering an "Introduction to Computing" Course within a College-Wide Community of Practice"
booktitle = "2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2015"
month = "June"
address = "Seattle, Washington"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://strategy.asee.org/24640}
number = {10.18260/p.24640}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -          Reengineering an “Introduction to Computing” course within a                     College-Wide Community of Practice         Widening Implementation & Demonstration of Evidence Based Reforms (WIDER) is acampus-wide effort to create institutional change in the way we teach core gateway STEMcourses. While instruction and course reform has historically been attempted by lone rangers tolittle lasting effect, WIDER’s paradigm is to organize instructors into Communities of Practice(CoPs) to provide mutual support and training, and to encourage and facilitate the organicdissemination of best practices across courses among the members of the community of practice.In particular, mentorship relationships within the community have provided ready avenues forthe translation of best practices. In the full paper, we will describe and analyze the redesign ofone such course in the WIDER community, highlighting how the redesign of this course wasinformed by its involvement within this larger community of practice.         Collectively, faculty in all disciplines have rapidly increasing expectations for students’competencies in computing. In response, our “Introduction to Computing” course wasreengineered during the Spring 2014 semester with a three-pronged vision: (1) maintaining andelevating student engagement, (2) scaling the course to thousands of students per year, and (3)extending accessibility to any student, regardless of major, background knowledge, or technicalability.         To elevate student engagement, the course iterates through nine instructional “cycles”consisting of four elements: (a) pre-lecture content presentation and practice problems, (b) activelearning exercise during in-class lectures, (c) collaborative, context-rich problem solving labsections, and (d) a programming assignment to complete on their own. These elements wereinitially developed in other courses redesigned by other members of the WIDER community,providing inspiration and guidance from within the community of practice.        Efforts to scale this course have relied on the “flipped” course model and tapping into theone resource that scales with the number of students in the course: undergraduate courseassistants. In particular, the collaborative lab sections are staffed primarily by former students.         Finally, to improve accessibility, the course content is being designed with a “mobile-first” approach, ensuring that assignments, including assignments that involved writing code,could be completed on any modern computing device regardless of size.        As part of the implement-evaluate culture engendered by the WIDER community, wehave collected a variety of data demonstrating the effectiveness of this new course design.Surveys have revealed that students are responding positively to the collaborative learningenvironment as 83% of students report that their peers are helpful in lab and 87% prefer workingin groups to working individually. Similarly, pageview data shows that students are investingtime in the pre-lecture activities and are taking advantage of the mobile-first design.         The success of the reengineering has seen the course enrollment jump to over 900students in Fall 2014. In the spirit of WIDER, the community is now translating these practicesto a follow-on “Foundations in Computing” course at the sophomore level. This new course isexpected to be executed in Spring 2015 using the same course design and teaching techniqueswithin the WIDER community of practice.
AU  - Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider
AU  - Cinda Heeren
AU  - Geoffrey L. Herman
AU  - Matthew West
CY  - Seattle, Washington
DA  - 2015/06/14
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Re-engineering an "Introduction to Computing" Course within a College-Wide Community of Practice
UR  - https://strategy.asee.org/24640
DO  - 10.18260/p.24640
ER  -