Publication Date

1-2007

Comments

Technical Report UTEP-CS-07-02

Abstract

In Spring of 2006, the Computer Science Department at the The University of Texas at El Paso began an initiative to offer a course named CS 1310 Introduction to Computing, focused on media computation. The course was directed toward Liberal Arts or non-CS students with the main goal of exposing these students to fundamental concepts of computer science using a highly abstract language called Python. The course was structured similar to that of the CS 1315 Introduction to Media Computation course offered at Georgia Institute of Technology, designed by Associate Professor, Mark Guzdial.

The remainder of this document serves to evaluate the survey and coursework of CS 1310�s first two semesters. Each semester, two surveys were collected from the students; one during the first week and the other during the final week. These surveys as well as the corresponding class observations are the basis for the tables, diagrams, and written evaluations that follow.

It is the goal in publishing these results that we begin to assess both the academic and personal impact of offering a course of this type to students of various disciplines at UTEP. Exposing students of all disciplines supports the fact that computing and the need for computer adept professionals is a multi-disciplinary requisite. This need can be addressed by providing courses focused on the fundamentals of computing using techniques that promote interest, challenges and creativity for the students.

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