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Towards Identifying Core Computational Literacy Concepts for Inclusion in a First-year General Engineering Course

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Conference

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual Conference

Publication Date

July 26, 2021

Start Date

July 26, 2021

End Date

July 19, 2022

Conference Session

First-year Programs: Computation in the First Year

Tagged Division

First-Year Programs

Page Count

14

DOI

10.18260/1-2--37922

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/37922

Download Count

223

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Paper Authors

biography

Darren K. Maczka University of Tennessee at Knoxville Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-5966-5670

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Darren Maczka is a Lecturer and Research Assistant Professor in the Engineering Fundamentals program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He received his PhD in Engineering Education from Virginia Tech.

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biography

Rehan Shah University College London

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Rehan Shah is a third year doctoral student pursuing a PhD in Applied Mathematics at University College London (UCL). He has an MSc in Applied Mathematics from the University of Oxford (St. Anne's College) and a BEng in Mechanical Engineering with Business Finance from University College London (UCL) with the London School of Economics (LSE).

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Andrew L. Gillen University College London Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-8021-6108

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Andrew L. Gillen is a Lecturer in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geomatic Engineering at University College London. He has a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Virginia Tech and B.S. in Civil Engineering from Northeastern University.

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Abstract

In this paper, we describe an exploratory study to support efforts in revising first-year courses required for engineering students. It is common to include some form of introductory programming or spreadsheet computation topics in first-year courses. The inclusions of these topics is ostensibly to provide foundational computational skills needed in later courses. However, there are many challenges associated with teaching and learning these skills, the least of which is selecting which skills to include in the finite time allotted for a first-year introductory course that may also be tasked with teaching foundational problem solving and professional skills. This study is the first stage towards identifying a core set of skills for inclusion that would be relevant for most first-year students.

Maczka, D. K., & Shah, R., & Gillen, A. L. (2021, July), Towards Identifying Core Computational Literacy Concepts for Inclusion in a First-year General Engineering Course Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37922

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