A Framework for Levels of Student Participation and Stages of Relevant Curriculum

Abstract

Seven instructors at five institutions adopted process-oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) activities for their first-year courses. These POGIL activities were designed to prompt students to reflect on the relevance of the curriculum to their own lives. Students were significantly more comfortable with computers after taking the POGIL courses, even compared to students taking the same course from the same instructors. However, there was no overall effect on students' interest in taking more CS classes. Based on these findings, the authors developed Levels of Student Participation and Stages of Relevant Curriculum to help POGIL faculty make their classrooms more inclusive and their curriculum more relevant. Follow-up interviews with seven instructors demonstrated a marked increase in their plans to make their course content relevant to students.