TY - JOUR
T1 - A computational introduction to STEM studies
AU - Freudenthal, Eric
AU - Gonzalez, Rebeca
AU - Hug, Sarah
AU - Ogrey, Alexandria
AU - Roy, Mary Kay
AU - Siegel, Alan
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - We report on the content and early evaluation of a new introductory programming course "Media Propelled Computational Thinking," (abbreviated MPCT and pronounced iMPaCT). MPCT is integrated into a freshman-level entering students program that aims at retaining students by responding to the academic recruitment and attrition challenges of computer science and other STEM disciplines.This course is intended to provide meaningful experiences of relevance to students choosing majors that also fortifies their qualitative understandings of foundational math and physics concepts. MPCT's activities are designed to provide analytical challenges typical of STEM professions and to motivate additional inquiry. Preliminary evaluation results are encouraging - students from a wide range of academic majors find MPCT engaging and report that the analytical tasks were effective at conveying insight and decreasing anxiety towards foundational mathematical concepts. This paper extends prior reports on MPCT with evaluation results indicating that more than half of attendees indicated increased confidence in the understanding and application of quantitative analysis tasks and detected differences in that nature of students' engagement with math in MPCT and traditional math courses. In addition, this report includes an overview of an emerging effort to investigate the integration of MPCT into secondary school curricula.
AB - We report on the content and early evaluation of a new introductory programming course "Media Propelled Computational Thinking," (abbreviated MPCT and pronounced iMPaCT). MPCT is integrated into a freshman-level entering students program that aims at retaining students by responding to the academic recruitment and attrition challenges of computer science and other STEM disciplines.This course is intended to provide meaningful experiences of relevance to students choosing majors that also fortifies their qualitative understandings of foundational math and physics concepts. MPCT's activities are designed to provide analytical challenges typical of STEM professions and to motivate additional inquiry. Preliminary evaluation results are encouraging - students from a wide range of academic majors find MPCT engaging and report that the analytical tasks were effective at conveying insight and decreasing anxiety towards foundational mathematical concepts. This paper extends prior reports on MPCT with evaluation results indicating that more than half of attendees indicated increased confidence in the understanding and application of quantitative analysis tasks and detected differences in that nature of students' engagement with math in MPCT and traditional math courses. In addition, this report includes an overview of an emerging effort to investigate the integration of MPCT into secondary school curricula.
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M3 - Conference article
AN - SCOPUS:85029126334
SN - 2153-5965
JO - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
JF - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
T2 - 2010 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition
Y2 - 20 June 2010 through 23 June 2010
ER -