Getting Them Out Of Their Shells: Service Learning And CS Students

1. Getting Them Out Of Their Shells: Service Learning And CS Students Jim Bohy – Iowa Wesleyan College

2. Overview • Why service learning? • What is service learning? • The course itself • The results • What I’d do differently

3. Why service learning? • Lilly grant @ Simpson • Advisor training • Forming mentoring relationships • Service learning • Course development grants • Vocational exploration • Service learning • My own interests in educational technology and software development

4. Service learning defined • Service-learning is a teaching method which combines community service with academic instruction as it focuses on critical, reflective thinking and civic responsibility.

5. Service-learning programs involve students in organized community service that addresses local needs, while developing their academic skills, sense of civic responsibility, and commitment to the community.

6. Service learning from my perspective • Balance academic rigor with social responsibility • Get the students to engage with the “other” (however that’s defined – usually it’s an opportunity to be exposed to diversity) • Overcome stereotypes of what CS majors are and do

7. The course • Computer Science in Education • Cross listed • Broad goals • Get CS and Education majors to take the course • Each group can lend their expertise in constructing truly educational software • Get the school kids involved in the design process

8. Course objectives • Upon completion of this course, students should be able to: • Develop a piece of instructional software • Develop and measure the effectiveness of a piece of instructional software • Develop a set of criteria to be used to evaluate instructional software • Critically evaluate applications of computer-based and computer assisted instruction

9. Objectives – continued • Develop a set of goals and objectives from which instructional software could be produced • Work with K-12 teachers and students to design a piece of instructional software • Work with K-12 students to develop an appropriate user interface for a piece of instructional software

10. Activities • Reflective writing • Software evaluations • Software development • Course participation

11. The environment • Economically disadvantaged elementary school in Des Moines • 3rd grade classroom • Variety of reading levels • The teacher • MA in educational technology • Ran a reasonably well-structured classroom

12. 3 CS majors took the course (no education majors) • 2 seniors and 1 freshman • 3 of the quietest students I have ever worked with in 16 years of teaching college • My role was one of relatively active observer

13. Basic structure • Spent several periods talking about educational software development • Met with the 3rd grade clients once a week for 6 weeks • Spent several class periods looking at existing software to get ideas • Spent remaining class periods developing the software

14. The results • The program itself • The relationships built • Between my students and these 3rd graders • Between me and my students • Between the institutions • The changes in the students • What I got out of it

15. “My perspective might be a little different than that of my classmates, since I’ve been lucky enough to be around computers my entire school career. Through computers subjects seen as dull and boring, like math, can be turned into a fun game. With the project we did, I felt that the kids genuinely enjoyed calling out answers and competing a little bit with each other. “

16. “As a computer scientist, the ability to not only complete goals but also do them in a timely manner is extremely important. I also learned how to split up the various jobs we had to finish in order to complete the project. Things like a general outline of how the program should work and look like were things I had never done before.”

17. “I don’t know if this class made me really change as a person, but it did help me to understand how to teach children. I am not going to be a teacher anytime soon, of course, but knowledge of the different types of learning and different methods of teaching will certainly help when I have a family of my own someday.”

18. “Honestly, the children’s reaction to the finished project was great. It was definitely the best experience I had as a computer science major. Also asking the children for their input was definitely an experience into and of itself.”

19. “The only thing that hampered us from making the project just a little bit better was the lack of students in the group that were majoring in education. As a CompSci student I never was taught the differences between styles of learning or anything like that. Also, some art students would have been nice, since none of us in the project are artists in any sense of the word. Animations are the one thing that I wish we could have put in the game, but we ran out of time and our animating skills weren’t up to par unfortunately.”

20. What I’d Do Differently • The development environment • A bit more direction on the project • Push the teacher more for ideas • Recruit more education majors to take the course