Sarita Yardi
Amy Bruckman
ABSTRACT
Studies show that teenagers perceive computing to be boring, antisocial, and irrelevant to their lives. We interviewed 13 teenagers from local Atlanta schools and observed over 40 teenagers in after-school technology programs to learn more about their perceptions of computing. We then interviewed 22 graduate students in the Human-Centered Computing and Human-Computer Interaction programs at Georgia Tech in order to learn about the factors that motivated them to pursue degrees in computing. We found that teenagers perceived computing to be boring, solitary, and lacking real-world context, yet graduate students described their research as exciting, social, and having a direct and meaningful impact on the world around them. Our results suggest that there is an opportunity to increase interest in computing among teenagers by bridging the gap between their perceptions of computing and the actual opportunities that are offered in computing disciplines. In this paper, we first describe our interview results. We then discuss our findings and propose a design-based curriculum to teach teenagers core computing principles. The goal of this curriculum is to prepare and motivate them for careers in today's expanding, Internet-based, global economy. We suggest that by portraying computing as an innovative, creative, and challenging field with authentic, real-world applications, we may be able to motivate teenagers to become more excited to pursue careers in computing.
- Acm model high school computer science curriculum. Technical report, Task Force of the Pre-College Committee of the Education Board of the ACM, 1997. Available at http://www.acm.org/education/hscur. Accessed April 2000.Google Scholar
- C. Alt, O. Astrachan, J. Forbes, R. Lucic, and S. Rodger. Social networks generate interest in computer science. SIGCSE '06: Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, pages 438--442, 2006. Google ScholarDigital Library
- L. J. Barker, K. Garvin-Doxas, and M. Jackson. Defensive climate in the computer science classroom. SIGCSE '02: Proceedings of the 33rd SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, pages 43--47, 2002. Google ScholarDigital Library
- T. Camp. The incredible shrinking pipeline. Communications of the ACM, 40(10):103--110, 1997. Google ScholarDigital Library
- P. J. Denning. Great principles of computing. Commun. ACM, 46(11):15--20, 2003. Google ScholarDigital Library
- P. J. Denning and A. McGettrick. Recentering computer science. Commun. ACM, 48(11):15--19, 2005. Google ScholarDigital Library
- A. Fisher and J. Margolis. Unlocking the clubhouse: The carnegie mellon experience. SIGCSE Bulletin, 34(2):79--83, 2002. Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. Furst, C. Isbell, and M. Guzdial. Threads: how to restructure a computer science curriculum for a flat world. SIGCSE '07: Proceedings of the 38th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, pages 420--424, 2007. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. Hailpern, E. Hinterbichler, C. Leppert, D. Cook, and B. P. Bailey. Team storm: Demonstrating an interaction model for working with multiple ideas during creative group work. In C&C '07: Proceedings of the 7th conference on Creativity & cognition. ACM Press, 2007. Google ScholarDigital Library
- L. Layman, L. Williams, and K. Slaten. Note to self: make assignments meaningful. SIGCSE Bull., 39(1):459--463, 2007. Google ScholarDigital Library
- A. Lenhart, M. Madden, and P. Hitlin. Teen content creators and consumers. Technical report, Washington D.C.: Pew Internet & American Life, July 2005.Google Scholar
- A. Lenhart, M. Madden, and P. Hitlin. Teens and technology: Youth are leading the transition to a fully wired and mobile nation. Technical report, Washington D.C.: Pew Internet & American Life, November 2005.Google Scholar
- S. Leutenegger and J. Edgington. A games first approach to teaching introductory programming. In SIGCSE '07: Proceedings of the 38th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, pages 115--118, New York, NY, USA, 2007. ACM Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. Margolis and A. Fisher. Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002.Google Scholar
- A. McGettrick. The current crisis in computing: what are the real issues? SIGCSE Bull., 39(1), 2007. Google ScholarDigital Library
- M. D. Medley. Using qualitative research software for cs education research. In ITiCSE '01: Proceedings of the 6th annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education, pages 141--144, New York, NY, USA, 2001. ACM Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
- NSF. Science of design program solicitation. Available at http://www.nsf.gov/.Google Scholar
- S. Papert. Mindstorms: Children, computers, and powerful ideas. Basic Books, January 1981. Google ScholarDigital Library
- D. Perelman. How to stop the dilbertization of it. eWeek.com, 2007.Google Scholar
- S. L. Pfleeger, P. Teller, S. E. Castaneda, M. Wilson, and R. Lindley. Increasing the enrollment of women in computer science. SIGCSE '01: Proceedings of the thirty-second SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer Science Education, pages 386--387, 2001. Google ScholarDigital Library
- R. Raskin. Do we need a national computing curriculum? March 2007. Available at http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/raskin.Google Scholar
- T. Sanders. Computer majors down to bits, cornell sees decline after dot-com bust. The Ithaca Journal, 2007. Available at http://www.theithacajournal.com.Google Scholar
- R. Shackelford, A. McGettrick, R. Sloan, H. Topi, G. Davies, R. Kamali, J. Cross, J. Impagliazzo, R. LeBlanc, and B. Lunt. Computing curricula 2005: The overview report. In SIGCSE '06: Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, pages 456--457, New York, NY, USA, 2006. ACM Press. Google ScholarDigital Library
- J. Sims-Knight and R. Upchurch. Teaching objectoriented design without programming: A progress report. Computer Science Education, 4:135--136, 1993.Google ScholarCross Ref
- J. Vegso. Interest in cs as a major drops among incoming freshmen. Computing Research News, 17(3), 2005.Google Scholar
- J. Vegso. Continued drop in cs bachelor's degree production and enrollments as the number of new majors stabilizes. Computing Research News, 19(2), 2007.Google Scholar
- B. C. Wilson and S. Shrock. Contributing to success in an introductory computer science course: a study of twelve factors. SIGCSE '01: Proceedings of the thirty-second SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer Science Education, pages 184--188, 2001. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- What is computing?: bridging the gap between teenagers' perceptions and graduate students' experiences
Recommendations
Computing for the social good: engaging Latino/a students in K-12
Computing for the social good is a movement that aims to broaden participation in computing by offering opportunities to apply computer science to social causes in higher education (Buckley, Nordlinger, & Subramanian, 2008; Goldweber et al., 2011). We ...
Colorado Strategic Approach to Rally Teachers
SIGCSE '21: Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science EducationColorado Strategic Approach to Rally Teachers (C-START) has provided computer science (CS) professional development to 1,425 K-12 teachers from 2016 to the present impacting over 7,000 students (who are ~33% female and 21% from other underrepresented ...
Georgia Computes! An Intervention in a US State, with Formal and Informal Education in a Policy Context
Special Issue on Computing Education in (K-12) SchoolsGeorgia Computes! (GaComputes) was a six-year (2006--2012) project to improve computing education across the state of Georgia in the United States, funded by the National Science Foundation. The goal of GaComputes was to broaden participation in ...
Comments