research-article

Introducing Computing Concepts to Non-Majors: A Case Study in Gothic Novels

Authors:

Dennis BrylowAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE '15: Proceedings of the 46th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

Pages 132 - 137

https://doi.org/10.1145/2676723.2677308

Published: 24 February 2015 Publication History

Abstract

This paper presents an approach to integrating computer science and quantitative literacy concepts in an undergraduate English Literature course. We show how students with no prior background in computer science can engage in computing activities directly related to their topic of interest and gain a deeper understanding of their topic as well as a better appreciation and understanding of computer science and quantitative literacy in the process. Students work in an interdisciplinary learning environment focusing on literary analysis and quantitative literacy with computing concepts acting as the bridge between the two areas.

References

[1]

C. Alvarado and Z. Dodds. Women in CS: An evaluation of three promising practices. In Proceedings of SIGCSE'10, pages 57--61, Milwaukee, WI, USA, 2010. ACM.

Digital Library

[2]

V. Barr. Create two, three, many courses: An experiment in contextualized introductory computer science. J. Comput. Sci. Coll., 27(6):19--25, June 2012.

Digital Library

[3]

C. Barrowman et al. Critical Theory as Critical Thinking: A Book of Classroom Practice in Literary Criticism. Alverno College, Milwaukee, WI, USA, 2010.

[4]

M. Bosch. Mathematics and Science: The relationships and disconnects between research and education. In Compendium for Math and Science., eds C. Winslow, M. Achiam, Copenhagen: Department of Science Education, 2014.

[5]

L. Carter. Why students with an apparent aptitude for computer science don't choose to major in computer science. In Proceedings of SIGCSE'06, pages 27--31, Houston, TX, USA, 2006. ACM.

Digital Library

[6]

L. Carter. Interdisciplinary computing classes: Worth the effort. In Proceedings of SIGCSE'14. Pages 445--450, Atlanta, GA, USA, 2014. ACM.

Digital Library

[7]

P. Charters, M. J. Lee, A. J. Ko, and D. Loksa. Challenging stereotypes and changing attitudes: The effect of a brief programming encounter on adults' attitudes toward programming. In Proceedings of SIGCSE'14, pages 653--658, Atlanta, GA, USA, 2014. ACM.

Digital Library

[8]

CSTA Standards Task Force. CSTA K-12 computer science standards. Association for Computing Machinery, 2011. http://www.acm.org/education/curricula-recommendation.

[9]

Q. Cutts, S. Esper, and B. Simon. Computing as the 4th 'R': A general education approach to computing education. In Proceedings of ICER'11, pages 133--138, Providence, RI, USA, 2011. ACM.

Digital Library

[10]

C. Dierbach, B. Taylor, H. Zhou, and I. Zimand. Experiences with a cs0 course targeted for cs1 success. In Proceedings of SIGCSE'05, pages 317--320, St. Louis, MO, USA, 2005. ACM.

Digital Library

[11]

S. Esper, S. R. Foster, and W. G. Griswold. On the nature of fires and how to spark them when you're not there. In Proceedings of SIGCSE'13, pages 305--310, Denver, CO, USA, 2013. ACM.

Digital Library

[12]

J. Feinberg. Wordle - beautiful word clouds. http://www.wordle.net.

[13]

E. R. Gansner and S. C. North. An open graph visualization system and its applications to software engineering. Software Practice and Experience, 30(11):1203, 2000. www.graphviz.org

Digital Library

[14]

S. Grover, R. Pea, and S. Cooper. Remedying misperceptions of computer science among middle school students. In Proceedings of SIGCSE'14, pages 343--348, Atlanta, GA, USA, 2014. ACM.

Digital Library

[15]

Project Gutenburg Archive. http://www.gutenberg.org/.

[16]

M. Hewner. Undergraduate conceptinos of the field of computer science. In Proceedings of ICER'13, pages 107--114, San Diego, CA, USA, 2013. ACM.

Digital Library

[17]

W. L. Honig. Teaching and assessing programming fundamentals for non majors with visual programming. In Proceedings of ITiCSE'13, pages 40--45, Canterbury, England, UK, 2013. ACM.

Digital Library

[18]

G. P. Landow. Vicorian web. http://www.victorianweb.org/.

[19]

B. Lawson, D. Szajda, and L. Barnett. Introducing computer science in an integrated science course. In Proceedings of SIGCSE'13, pages 341--346, Denver, CO, USA, 2013. ACM.

Digital Library

[20]

C. D. Martin. Draw a computer scientist. In Working Group Reports from ITiCSE'04, pages11--12, Leeds, UK, 2004. ACM.

Digital Library

[21]

M. Mentkowski. Leaerning That Lasts: Integrating Learning, Development, And Performance In College And Beyond. Jossey-Bass, 1999.

[22]

A. Mitchell, H. C. Purchase, and J. Hamer. Computing science: What do pupils think? In Proceedings of ITiCSE'09, pages 353--353, Paris, France, 2009. ACM.

Digital Library

[23]

T. Newhall, L. Meeden, A. Daner, A. Soni, F. Ruiz, and R. Wicentowski. A support program for introductory CS courses that improves student performance and retains students from underrepresented groups. In Proceedings of SICSES'14, pages 433--438, Atlanta, GA, USA, 2014. ACM.

Digital Library

[24]

Gyeong-Mi Park, Sung-Hwan Kim, Hye-Ryeon Hwang, and Hwan-Gue Cho. Complex System Analysis of Social Networks Extracted from Literary Fictions. International Journal of Machine Learning and Computing, 3(1)107--111, 2013.

[25]

D. Schunk. Learning Theories: An educational perspective. Pearson Education Inc, Boston, MA, 2012.

[26]

E. K. Stage, H. Asturias, T. Cheuk, P. A. Daro, and S. B. Hampton. Opportunities and challenges in next generation standards. Science, 340(6130):276--277, 2013.

[27]

T. Underwook, M. L. Black, L. Auvil, and B. Capitanu. Mapping mutable genres in structurally complex volumes. In Proceedings of BigData'13, pages 95--103. IEEE, 2013.

[28]

M. VanDyne and J. Braun. Effectiveness of a computational thinking (cs0) course on student analytical skills. In Proceedings of SIGCSE'14, pages 133--138, Atlants, GA, USA, 2014. ACM.

Digital Library

[29]

J. Walden, M. Doyle, R. Garns, and Z. Hart. An informatics perspective on computational thinking. In Proceedings of ITiCSE'13, pages 4--9, Canterbury, England, UK, 2013. ACM.

Digital Library

[30]

C. Wilson, L. A. Sudol, C. Stephenson, and M. Stehlik. Running on empty: The failure to teach K-12 computer science in the digital age. ACM, 2010. http://www.acm.org/Runningonempty/.

Digital Library

[31]

S. Yardi and A. Bruckman. What is computing?: Bridging the gap between teenagers' perceptions and graduate students' experiences. In Proceedings of ICER'07, pages 39--50, Atlanta, GA, USA, 2007. ACM.

Digital Library

Cited By

Reades JRey S(2021)Geographical Python Teaching Resources: geopyterJournal of Geographical Systems10.1007/s10109-021-00346-6Online publication date: 23-Apr-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10109-021-00346-6
Heo G(2020)Arduino-Compatible Modular Kit Design and Implementation for Programming EducationAdvances in Science, Technology and Engineering Systems Journal10.25046/aj0505375:5(295-301)Online publication date: 2020
https://doi.org/10.25046/aj050537
Reades J(2020)Teaching on JupyterREGION10.18335/region.v7i1.2827:1(21-34)Online publication date: 23-Mar-2020
https://doi.org/10.18335/region.v7i1.282
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Introducing Computing Concepts to Non-Majors: A Case Study in Gothic Novels
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
        Information science education

Recommendations

Computing for STEM majors: enhancing non CS majors' computing skills
SIGCSE '12: Proceedings of the 43rd ACM technical symposium on Computer Science Education

One of the challenges facing the U.S. technological workforce is that as fewer students take computing courses, fewer college graduates are being prepared for computing careers. Besides trying to attract more CS majors, another approach is to (i) design ...
Introducing computer science to K-12 through a summer computing workshop for teachers
SIGCSE '11: Proceedings of the 42nd ACM technical symposium on Computer science education

In this paper, we describe a one-week summer computing workshop for teachers to improve computer science education in K-12. Our workshop focuses on using Scratch and Alice, two programs used to make simple games and animations, to introduce computing ...
Introducing Computational Thinking and Computer Science Instruction to Preservice Science and Math Teachers
SIGCSETS 2025: Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1

Despite widespread recognition of the importance of computer science (CS) education and an increased focus on computational thinking (CT) instruction in the U.S., there remains a significant shortage of qualified K-12 CS teachers. Preparing preservice ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

SIGCSE '15: Proceedings of the 46th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

February 2015

766 pages

ISBN:9781450329668

DOI:10.1145/2676723

General Chairs:
Adrienne Decker
Rochester Institute of Technology
,
Kurt Eiselt
University of British Columbia
,
Program Chairs:
Carl Alphonce
University at Buffalo
,
Jodi Tims
Baldwin Wallace College

Copyright © 2015 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

SIGCSE: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 24 February 2015

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

SIGCSE '15

Sponsor:

SIGCSE

SIGCSE '15: The 46th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

March 4 - 7, 2015

Missouri, Kansas City, USA

Acceptance Rates

SIGCSE '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 105 of 289 submissions, 36%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,787 of 5,146 submissions, 35%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

8
Total Citations
View Citations
317
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)4
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1

Reflects downloads up to 03 Mar 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Reades JRey S(2021)Geographical Python Teaching Resources: geopyterJournal of Geographical Systems10.1007/s10109-021-00346-6Online publication date: 23-Apr-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10109-021-00346-6
Heo G(2020)Arduino-Compatible Modular Kit Design and Implementation for Programming EducationAdvances in Science, Technology and Engineering Systems Journal10.25046/aj0505375:5(295-301)Online publication date: 2020
https://doi.org/10.25046/aj050537
Reades J(2020)Teaching on JupyterREGION10.18335/region.v7i1.2827:1(21-34)Online publication date: 23-Mar-2020
https://doi.org/10.18335/region.v7i1.282
Cory Bart ATibau JKafura DA. Shaffer CTilevich E(2019)Design and Evaluation of a Block-based Environment with a Data Science ContextIEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing10.1109/TETC.2017.2729585(1-1)Online publication date: 2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/TETC.2017.2729585
Zug MHoffman HKobayashi FPresident MDodds Z(2018)CS for all academic identitiesJournal of Computing Sciences in Colleges10.5555/3199572.319959033:4(130-137)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3199572.3199590
Brunvand EMcCurdy N(2017)Making NoiseACM Inroads10.1145/3095781.30177148:2(60-65)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3095781.3017714
Brunvand EMcCurdy NCaspersen MEdwards SBarnes TGarcia D(2017)Making NoiseProceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3017680.3017714(87-92)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3017680.3017714
Van Wart SDorn BSheard JCutts Q(2015)Computer Science Meets Social StudiesProceedings of the eleventh annual International Conference on International Computing Education Research10.1145/2787622.2787751(281-282)Online publication date: 9-Jul-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2787622.2787751

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Figures

Tables

Media

View Table of Conten