CPATH-CDEF: Resparking Innovation in Computing Education

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This CPATH CISE Distinguished Education Fellow (CDEF) award to Dr. Peter Denning recognizes his role as an accomplished, creative, and innovative leader who serves the nation as a spokesperson and force for change in undergraduate computing education. CDEF awards are made to individuals who have achieved distinction in the computing profession, who are committed to transforming undergraduate computing education, and who have innovative ideas on how to do so. In his CPATH project, Dr. Denning articulates both a broad vision for revitalizing undergraduate computing education in the nation and an implementation plan for building community around those revitalization efforts. His project vision is to support U.S. competitiveness by stimulating a greater supply of talented, innovative people in computing. The objectives are to design a new operating model for computing education and, with support from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Education Board, involve computing departments in experiments with the model. The new model will be true to fundamental computing principles, emphasize innovation by individual faculty, students, and departments, and support faculty in their roles as mentors and coaches. A key component of the community building aspect of this project is that this project will design support networks and structures that can be administered by ACM to sustain the ideas from workshops. And, the workshops will support the leadership development of at least two dozen innovative junior leaders of the field. In this context, the PI will organize three invited workshops and a comprehensive final report. The first, a Great Principles Workshop, will seek agreement on a presentation of fundamental principles of computing, commitments from experts to write principle stories, and establishment of an ACM Great Principles Library populated initially with materials written by the commissioned experts. The second workshop, a Stimulating Innovation in Curriculum Workshop, will recognize innovators and publicize their innovations, initiate an Innovators Portal containing innovation descriptions and guidelines for other departments to imitate, initiate an Innovation Practice Workshop to help faculty learn foundational innovation and coaching practices, and develop a support network for innovators. The third workshop involves an exploration of an alternative operating model. A Project-Based Learning Workshop will explore the intricacies of a project-based curriculum and help those who want to adopt project-based learning in their own departments. After the workshops the PI will integrate workshop findings and recommendations into A Report on a New Operating Model for Computing Curricula and work with the ACM Education Board to implement the recommended support structures. This project will help computing departments reestablish themselves as places of innovation and attract students. The principles framework will enhance the reputation of computing as a well-grounded science and engineering field. Ultimately, the outcomes of this project should contribute to enhancing national competitiveness in computing by attracting some of the brightest and best students to computing careers. The outcomes of this CPATH CDEF project are likely to have far-reaching and critical impacts on educational institutions in the nation. These outcomes address many of the current problems faced by the field and propose a sound solution.