CS1: Computation & Cognition -- An Evidence-Based Course to Broaden Participation (Abstract Only)

Abstract

This poster describes a new CS1 course on Computation & Cognition (C&C), targeted at students in psychology, neuroscience, and biology. In C&C, students learn to create and use software to imitate, model, or study processes in the brain. Topics include software development, control structures, data types, and testing, as well as key ideas in experimental design, stimulus presentation, searching, natural language processing, genetic algorithms, and neural networks. Thus, C&C enriches student understanding of content in their majors, and develops programming and computational skills in a relevant context, which should enhance subsequent research projects and career outcomes. C&C was developed with support from a 2015 Google CS Engagement grant, and incorporates research-based practices that improve student learning and help broaden participation in computing. In particular, C&C uses Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) (http://pogil.org), in which student teams work on classroom activities that are specifically designed to guide them to construct their own understanding of key concepts, and to develop process skills such as communication, critical thinking, problem solving, and teamwork. C&C also uses PsychoPy (http://psychopy.org), a FOSS tool to run psychology experiments with two interfaces -- the Builder GUI to design experiments, and the Coder IDE to write Python code. The first offering of C&C was small (3 female, 3 male) with strong ratings for the course overall, and for increasing student interest in the subject matter. In the future, we hope to add experimental paradigms and techniques, and engage more students from diverse backgrounds.