Oberlin College will continue the development of two laboratory-based introductory courses for the computer science major started with a previous UCC grant of one year. This project supports a faculty member for the development of the laboratory materials, and student laboratory assistants during the period of the grant. The two courses follow the recommendations of the recent ACM/IEEE report Computing Curriculum '91, and gives emphasis to algorithms and conceptual development of the introductory material. The laboratory sessions are used to make the courses more realistic introductions to the broad range of topics that make up computer science, and to speed up and enhance the students' learning of technical matters that require hands-on experience. These changes are expected to make the courses more interesting, more useful, and more accurate reflections of the field, and to create a positive effect on the number of women and minorities majoring in computer science.
