This CPATH Project extends the Small Footprint model, successfully pioneered and developed at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, to four other institutions, Massachusetts Amherst, Harvard, Colby, and Rensselear Polytechnic. The principal investigator will work with other academic institutions to adapt the lessons learned at Olin to a broader set of schools, specifically addressing the diverse needs of different kinds of educational institutions. Among the virtues of the small footprint curriculum are: a reduced core that concentrates on the particular elements that are required in order to learn the rest of computing; an emphasis on teaching students to learn more on their own; room for and an emphasis on active, hands-on, project-based and inquiry-driven projects, often carried out in teams; opportunities to collaborate with other disciplines and to build genuinely joint curriculum; and contextualization of the core of computing education. A diverse initial group of pioneer collaborators have are committed to immediate curricular reform. A series of workshops and town hall meetings as well as an online consultation will be used to identify and recruit additional partner institutions and to create a national shift in understanding of what is necessary to the revitalization of computing education.
Intellectual Merit: Widespread change in computing curricula requires careful construction of viable models. The approaches of this project should provide opportunities for multi-disciplinary collaboration as the core computing curriculum is refactored to emphasize computing's durable bones. The PI brings a unique background including prior successes in growing curricula outwards from single institutions and extensive experience developing both a small footprint curriculum for computing and an engineering educational program. The first round partner schools have been carefully selected to provide diverse models from which to bootstrap a national conversation and community.
Broader Impact: The primary focus of this project is the content and style of teaching, training, and learning in computing. The project will engage many educators in active conversation and then transformation of undergraduate computing programs. In turn, these curricular reforms will change the educational experiences of students in traditional computing disciplines and create new opportunities for students through the development of interdisciplinary programs. Initially the project is geographically centered but over time the project will broaden its reach through workshops, town hall meetings, publications, electronic and in-person consultation by the PI, and hands-on curricular revision. Eventually, every university in the nation should be able to look to at least one successful adaptation of the small footprint curriculum at a peer institution, so that curricular reform moves from radical innovation to the easier processes of emulation and adoption.
