Increasingly, international competence is considered an important skill to be acquired from an undergraduate education. Because international exchange presents a challenge to many students, there is a need to develop and implement alternative means for incorporating international and cross-cultural experiences into the undergraduate classroom. We report on the implementation of a semester-long, virtually shared course offering between a U.S. and a Bolivian university. As STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) majors tend to be under-represented in study-abroad programs, this class sought to provide a multidisciplinary experience that could be relevant to both hard and social science majors. Furthermore, the relevance and learning impact of this class was enhanced through the incorporation of a servicelearning component in conjunction with a rural Bolivian partner organization. The results of this experience show that virtually shared classroom experiences can successfully facilitate international experiences for undergraduate students.
Academic service-learning (ASL) focuses on clearly aligning course learning objectives with community needs and has evolved into a highly effective pedagogical approach across the spectrum of disciplines and institutional types. Unfortunately, there are not many examples of its use in computer science. If service learning is incorporated into computer science, it is generally in the upper level courses where students have a larger skill set. This paper presents an academic service-learning approach in an introductory computer science course. This is important on multiple fronts. With the declining enrollments, especially among females, coupled with students' desire to make a difference in their world, we need to insert this pedagogical approach as early into the curriculum as possible. We will show an example of what can be done in an introductory course and discuss the positive effects on female enrollments.
The High-Impact Community Engagement Practices As we complete this volume, we also embark on Year 2 of the Bonner High-Impact Initiative, a strategy through which colleges and universities are joining a national learning community to link engaged learning with community-driven practice. Each institution is bringing together faculty, partners, students, and staff to craft initiatives that scale and deepen highimpact practices (HIPs), tying them to community engagement. These teams are participating in long-range strategic planning, attending a summer institute during which they plan high-impact projects, and implementing innovative projects and curricula. In the first year of the initiative, nine institutions participated. Another nine institutions are joining in 2013, and a third cohort will join in 2014. Each commits to at least three years' involvement, after which the project will become a standing initiative of the Bonner Foundation and Network. The High-Impact Initiative leverages promising research about engaged learning presented in the Liberal Education and America's Promise Report and College Learning for the New Global Century , as well as subsequent publications High-Impact Educational Practices and Five High-Impact Practices. Moreover, the strategy aims to capture and spread best practices of community engagement, drawing on two decades of experience of programs connected to the Bonner Network that have collectively graduated more than 6,000 alumni, most from low-income and underrepresented backgrounds. As the Student Impact Survey and Alumni Survey suggested, the model of a multiyear, intensive, developmental experience in community engagement
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.