Hooray, my panel proposal for SIGCSE 2019 was accepted! I’ll be moderating a discussion about “Civic Engagement Across the Computing Curriculum” with Michael Goldweber, Matthew Jadud, S. Monisha Pulimood, and Samuel Rebelsky. We hope many attendees will join us to share their own experiences with civic engagement, and have built our panel structure to have an open format for encouraging as much sharing and community building as we can at the conference. Here’s the abstract and overview of our panel, I’ll post the full paper when we finalize it for submission in the coming months.
Abstract
As outlined in the ACM Computer Science Curricula 2013 Guidelines section on Social Issues and Professional Practice, “Students must also be exposed to the larger societal context of computing to develop an understanding of the relevant social [and] ethical … issues.”
In this panel, we demonstrate diverse approaches used to achieve this goal with respect to civic engagement. Drawing from experiences with non-major, introductory computing, mobile applications, software engineering, and interdisciplinary courses, we discuss how to move beyond surface-level discussions of ethical case studies toward an integration of civic engagement activities and personal reflection into standard computing curriculum.
Summary
Many standard computing courses can be enhanced with opportunities for civic engagement. Our experiences show that with careful planning and support, incorporating civic engagement can increase student motivation and success, and open new pathways for underrepresented groups in computing. Our intended panel audience is computing educators seeking advice and direction on how to begin implementing civic engagement in their courses. We are also targeting educators looking to share their own civic engagement experiences and build community.
Panel Structure
After a very brief introduction from each panelist (5 minutes total), the moderator will ask the panel to comment on the following questions, with the goal of drawing out common themes and connections among the panelists on their experiences with civic engagement and computing curriculum.
- How do you involve civic engagement in your courses?
- How do you assess student success?
- What external resources helped or barriers hindered you?
- What lessons have you learned?
We recognize that our positions cannot cover the full spectrum of civic engagement experiences. Thus, each of these questions will also be posed to the audience to enlarge the conversation. Discussion on each question will be limited to 10 minutes, leaving 30 minutes for audience questions and participation.