This project, InspireCT, employs vertically integrated project teams to expose students to the excitement of computational thinking in action. This vertical integration results in a hands-on, active learning experience that can occur while students are still deciding what to study as undergraduates. InspireCT will revitalize undergraduate computing education by engaging students in team project applications of computing much earlier than is done today. The project includes participants at four levels of computing knowledge: pre-college students in grades 6-12, less experienced undergraduates, advanced undergraduates, and practicing professionals.
At the center of the project are advanced undergraduates and team projects typical of computing degree capstone experiences. The less experienced students are integrated into the excitement typical of capstone projects by activities appropriate to their experience level. The professionals provide projects and mentoring to ensure good connection with professional practice and actual applications of computational thinking.
InspireCT also makes use of mentoring - the project explores the impact of mentoring on student learning, and also examines the positive impact of the younger students seeing the successes of the more advanced students. This is expected to engender a positive attitude among less experienced students toward the study of computing.
Intellectual Merit - This project creates and disseminates a new approach to introducing and engaging students in computational thinking activities. This active learning approach is expected to improve student learning and to create a much more direct engagement with computing by "doing" rather than "hearing about" computational thinking.
The project focuses upon computational thinking concepts such as problem solving, abstraction, design, and thinking algorithmically. But the project also suggests that definitions of computational thinking need to include team level, collaborative efforts since this is how most professionals engage in computational thinking. Research indicates that understanding the collaborative and social aspects of computational thinking may be central to attracting more women students.
The project addresses significant challenges including shifts in instructional role, definition of appropriate activities for vertical integration, and changes in instructional role. At the same time, the project builds on a substantial base of theory and prior results in areas such as active learning, capstone projects, and gender equality in computing education. The theory and related work both indicate that the benefits could be very substantial if this project is successful in addressing the challenges and meeting the goals.
Broader Impact - InspireCT impacts students at both the pre-college and undergraduate levels. Sparking student interest at that earlier age and improving learning outcomes via active learning constitutes a potentially transformative impact on computing education. The social and applied aspects of this approach also provide key characteristics that research shows are effective in attracting women to computing. The community building aspect of the project includes both pre-college and undergraduate instructors. The InspireCT activities are organized to help identify and establish a series of collaborations between pre-college instructors and undergraduate faculty.
The INSPIRE-CT Project is a three university collaborative effort between Drexel University, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Texas Tech University. The INSPIRE-CT Project goals are to expose middle through high school students to computational thinking and computer science. The Texas Tech CPATH-2 (INSPIRE-CT) collaborated with a rural middle school and high school to inspire students to learn computer science skills and adopt computational-thinking skills through hands-on activities in math, science, and social science classes. Middle-school and high-school students, with some knowledge of computing technologies, helped to identify requirements for a small screen application that might be applicable for use in the NASA Orion Crew Module Mockup Program at Johnson Space Center. The middle-school students were given hand-held weather stations. The students studied their home and school environments, taking measurements of time, temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity to determine what information might be needed. Activities were developed by a Texas Tech Computer Science doctoral student, and the curriculum was developed by the graduate student and the Texas Tech T-STEM Center curriculum writer, and approved by Computer Science faculty; all were part of the Texas Tech C-PATH INSPIRE-CT project. The high school students wrote the application specifications, and Texas Tech Computer Science undergraduate students developed the application. Although there is no written agreement with NASA that they will use the application, the T-STEM Center's previous partnership with Johnson Space Center Orion Crew Module Mockup Program Team, in the Students Shaping the Next American Spacecraft (SSNAS) Program, gave the T-STEM Center insight of SSNAS program. Because the T-STEM Center has worked with engineers in the SSANS program, the Center has a good idea of what the Orion Mockup Team wants in the way of new ideas and technology. The middle-school and high-school students were invited to present the final small screen application to engineers and astronauts at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. The desired learning outcomes for students were for them to see the relationship of classroom math and science to industry. During their social science classes, as ethical considerations and social responsibilities were introduced, we expected the students to understand the ethical responsibility of any design and learn to make critical decisions about the application of any technology, including this particular small-screen application. Project Outcomes The lessons learned in developing the INSPIRE-CT program with the rural school district led to experience and knowledge in the development of a 40-hour professional development workshop, curriculum, and support that trains teachers how to integrate Project-based Learning into computational thinking. While providing the professional development training for teachers, we realized that we needed to start with rather simple examples of computational thinking for the teachers to make the connection of computational thinking to other content areas besides just computer science. In small rural communities teachers frequently teach in various content areas, so it is important that professional development training is thoroughly integrated across content areas. In addition, we discovered that students are perfectly capable of learning computational thinking, but also are very capable of solving real-world problems and devising solutions to the problem. The students expressed that they enjoyed taking part in the project, and that they felt honored to be able to travel to Johnson Space Center to present their solution to NASA engineers. Contributions within Computer Science Discipline During the fall of 2011, two undergraduate Computer Science students were hired by the T-STEM Center; the participating undergraduate students developed activities for the middle-school and high-school students to introduce the 6-12 grade students to computational thinking. In addition, the graduate student, with guidance from the T-STEM Center Unit Associate Director and the Program Manager, developed activity response sheets for the students to complete in order to assess if the students were grasping computational thinking. Since this school is serving as a pilot for the T-STEM Center to replicate the Computational Thinking Program at other schools, and especially rural schools, evaluating the response sheets allows the staff to evaluate the 6-12 grade computational-thinking project.
