CSIT XXX – Applied Programming for All Majors: A Contextualized Course Based on Inter-Disciplinary Curriculum Development
Pamela A. M. Bogdan, Sylvia Riviello · 2021 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) · 2021
This abstract of a Work In Progress for the Innovative Practice Category will describe both the need and design of a contextualized applied programming for all majors course that is based on inter-disciplinary curriculum development. Contextual teaching centers around improving the learning experience by linking it to the real world and the students career goals and academic major. Successfully doing that in the setting of a general education classroom is one of the challenges that is addressed by this course. It is anticipated that this approach can and will be used for other general STEM disciplines. This framework for course creation can make STEM courses more appealing to a larger population because they will understand through contextualized assignment how the material relates to their world. By creating an applied programming course for all majors, this initiative fills a common gap in general technology education. Many times, these courses fall into two basic categories: general computer literacy and programming for computer science majors. This course addresses general programming literacy for those students that will use programming as a tool, but not make programming their full-time job. It is envisioned that students enrolled in the same course and the same section would be presented the same basic programming concepts and then exercise them with problems designed specifically for their field of study. It is expected that this will lead a larger number of our students to acquire and understand the value of basic programming skills. This better appreciation for programming should help them in their future careers as they might do some programming and/or work with software and software developers. The enriched learning experience is achieved because major-specific assignments are jointly developed with all schools across the institution. This tight linkage allows for the applied-assignment portion of the course to pull through the expertise of faculty that is more well equipped to create real world assignments that show how their field of study utilizes computers and programming.