ABET-based program outcomes are the skills and knowledge that a student successfully completing the program has obtained at the time of graduation. For a Computer Science program, many of these outcomes require a developmental progression of learning experiences that are best provided incrementally across courses. Achievement of such a progression is predicated on a cooperative effort by faculty to define effective approaches to realizing the outcomes. However, the progression must also minimize demands on individual courses and eliminate unnecessary restrictions on faculty discretion in course design and implementation. In addition, a time-phased assessment plan should be overlaid upon the progression to measure and track the developmental process. This work documents our effort to define a developmental progression in our computer science program to better achieve ABET-based outcomes, integrate the progression into an existing curriculum in a minimally invasive manner, and incrementally assess the effectiveness of the approach.
One of the two USAFA CS Ed Week events was a school-wide Hour of Code led by Tess Livingston and Matt Kiser at Woodmen-Roberts Elementary School in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The event kicked off with a visit from a Nao robot and his human friends from the Department of Computer Science at the United States Air Force Academy. With the help of Cadet Lilly Warner, the Nao robot demonstrated its dexterity with a Tai Chi Chuan exercise, sang "Let it go" from the Frozen soundtrack, danced to "Happy" from Despicable Me, and conversed with the children motivating them to learn how to write code. Follow on activities in the computer lab with Mr. Kiser focused on the Hour of Code tutorials from code.org and tynker.com. The children from grades K through 5 all had a great time.
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.