Development of a set of "Closed Laboratories" for an Undergraduate Computer Science Curriculum

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The objective of this project is to support the development, evaluation, and export of a new curriculum and supporting materials focused around the practice of computing, especially in the first two years. The thrust of the new curriculum is based upon a core sequence of closed laboratories. Lecture materials and content will be supportive of the laboratories rather than the other way around. As a discipline, Computer Science has seen many dramatic changes in its brief history. Through new textbooks and an evolving curriculum, the content of undergraduate Computer Science education has for the most part kept pace with these changes. But the pedagogy has hardly changed. It emphasizes individual skill in writing short programs in a dead language, from scratch. This emphasis is the antithesis of that needed by a contemporary computing professional. This project develops a practice-centered undergraduate Computer Science curriculum, and specifically develops a collection of laboratory materials that support this approach. Central to the approach is an increased degree of rigor in all courses, coupled with the early introduction and subsequent use of modern software development methods and tools.The expectation is that this pedagogical shift will have the highest leverage for improving Computer Science education.