CS for All Academic Identities

Abstract

for All has set computer science on an unusual journey. Literacies are skills asked of us all: thus, for All identifies computing skills as a full-fledged human literacy. Yet, Computer Science departments are not uniformly ready to build a computing literacy for all students. This project has investigated on how different institutions are coping with this challenge. We share the results of a 50-institution curricular survey, tracking CS course offerings for a variety of cohorts outside the CS major. We add additional detail to this big-picture snapshot with data from a ten-year experiment offering a biology-and-computing introductory course. The downstream outcomes are heartening in both computing skills (no difference at all in subsequent performance relative to a peer control-group) and in spurring overlapping interest. We also share several new paths, termed bridges and injections, to help computing contribute to the academic identities of students in other disciplines. Just as cogent writing, critical reading, and compelling speaking are today/s hallmarks of literacy, the future may ask us to make computing part of our common goals and expectations. Through local and national data, this project is exploring new curricular paths with the goal that CS in many forms -- as a discipline, as an academic department, and as an identity of its own -- can fully support the challenge of for All.