Computer science educators recognize that rapid advances in technology and the emergence of a global economy make it essential to national competitiveness to expose students from all disciplines to the ideas of computational thinking. Computational thinking includes a broad range of mental tools and concepts from computer science that empower specialists in all disciplines to more effectively adopt, use and develop computational tools to solve problems, design systems and understand human behavior. To adequately prepare a workforce for the changing economic and global landscape, the project is developing a model that enables students with diverse perspectives and disciplinary backgrounds to learn how to collaborate and integrate concepts from their respective fields to develop technology-based solutions for complex real-world problems. The model includes collaboration with a community partner, making it practical for the many campuses with community engaged learning curricula.
The approach is deeply rooted in the considerable research base on pedagogy in computer science, the liberal arts and journalism, as well as how students learn. The project is demonstrating how to adapt computer science and non-computer science courses, and is developing a suite of assessment instruments to measure outcomes for participants. The model is replicable for a wide range of computing-dependent disciplines and local community partners. Through multidisciplinary, collaborative and immersion experiences, undergraduate students better internalize how to take responsibility for engaged citizenship in a complex and diverse society, while advancing their critical, analytic and computational thinking.
