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A Middle-School Code Camp Experience Emphasizing Data Science for Social Good: (Abstract Only)

Published: 21 February 2018 Publication History

Abstract

The underrepresentation of women, students of color, and people from lower-SES (socio-economic-status) backgrounds within computer science remains a national issue. Recent studies demonstrate one reason: persistent stereotypes about "who does computer science" can cause minority groups to preclude interest in the field. Unfortunately, these stereotypes are not the only threat to diversifying the discipline. Engaging a diverse group of individuals in computer science is unlikely so long as computing curriculum is perceived as "irrelevant" and "asocial/". Confronting the stigma of triviality applied to computer science, much like approaching student perceptions about who can do computer science, is a necessary step for increasing the perceived applicability of the discipline.
As a step in combating the perception that programming curriculum is irrelevant, we developed and ran a week-long summer coding camp for local middle school students that camp applied principles of computing for social good with data science approaches to encourage campers to consider how computing could help them explore societal issues. Throughout the week, campers learned how to extract meaning from their work and gained experience collaborating in pairs to solve problems.
In this poster, we discuss the camp curriculum and its emphasis on the applications of computing. We consider the effects of the camp on the self-efficacy of campers and their perceptions of computer science. We then present some recommendations for those intending to conduct similar camps.

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  1. A Middle-School Code Camp Experience Emphasizing Data Science for Social Good: (Abstract Only)

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      SIGCSE '18: Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
      February 2018
      1174 pages
      ISBN:9781450351034
      DOI:10.1145/3159450
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all 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 third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      Published: 21 February 2018

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      Author Tags

      1. bbc micro:bits
      2. code camp
      3. csg-ed
      4. data science
      5. ds4sg
      6. outreach (middle school)

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      • Poster

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      • Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust
      • Grinnell College Innovation Fund

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      SIGCSE '18
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      Acceptance Rates

      SIGCSE '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 161 of 459 submissions, 35%;
      Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

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      SIGCSE TS 2025
      The 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
      February 26 - March 1, 2025
      Pittsburgh , PA , USA

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