New to NSF: Recruiting and Retaining Students into Computing

改善本科STEM教育：西班牙裔服务机构计划（HSI计划）旨在加强本科STEM教育并建立HSI的能力。HSI计划支持的项目也将产生关于如何实现这些目标的新知识。德州农工大学圣安东尼奥分校的这个项目将通过提高计算机科学学生的保留率和完成率来推进HSI计划的目标，并更好地装备他们实现职业网络安全。 该项目还计划增加从两年制学院转入大学计算机科学课程的学生人数。 该项目计划在整个计算机科学课程中整合网络安全主题，以便学生在毕业时获得NSA网络防御教育证书。 该认证可以提高毕业生在高需求工作中的竞争力。 该计划的目标是扩大和加强学生的管道，包括西班牙裔学生，进入计算和网络安全领域。为了满足劳动力需求，该项目将开发一个计算机科学本科计算机科学课程，其中网络安全主题贯穿整个课程。该项目还旨在通过使学生在毕业时自动获得网络安全教育证书来提高保留率并加强学生的市场竞争力。计算机科学研究人员将与课程和教学研究人员合作，开发用于整个计算机科学课程的网络安全模块。 这些模块将通过网络安全透镜将计算主题置于情境中。为了帮助留住学生，网络安全模块将使用模型启发活动，这是一种教学方法，已被证明对妇女和其他在工程领域代表性不足的群体特别有效。该项目包括得克萨斯A M大学圣安东尼奥分校的计算和教育研究人员团队与农村拉雷多社区学院和城市圣安东尼奥学院的计算部门之间的合作，这两所学院都是为西班牙裔服务的社区学院。社区学院的伙伴关系将增加学生转学的机会，而课程的变化和包容性教学法的使用应增加学生坚持并获得计算机学位的可能性，使他们能够在计算机领域开展职业生涯。通过设计实验方法，该项目将调查模型诱导活动的影响，并将网络安全纳入教师的有效性和学生的态度和表现。 该研究结果可以为其他计算机科学和相关项目的实践提供信息，这些项目旨在提高学生在计算项目中的成功率和多样性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program) aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims. This project at Texas A&M University-San Antonio will advance the aims of the HSI Program by increasing the retention and completion rates of students in computer science and to better equip them to achieve careers cyber security. The project also plans to increase the number of transfer of students who transfer from two-year colleges into computer science programs at the University. The project plans to integrate cyber security topics throughout the entire computer science curriculum, so that students will obtain an NSA Cyber Defense Education certificate upon graduation. This certification can increase the competitiveness of the graduates in high-demand jobs. The objectives of this program are to broaden and strengthen the pipeline of students, including Hispanic students, entering the field of computing and cyber security. To meet workforce demands, the project will develop a computer science undergraduate computer science program in which cyber security topics are integrated throughout the curriculum. The project also seeks to increase the retention rates and strengthen the marketability of students by enabling student to automatically earn a certificate in cyber security education upon graduation. Computer science researchers will collaborate with curriculum and instruction researchers to develop cyber security modules for use throughout the computer science curriculum. These modules will contextualize computing topics via a cyber security lens. To assist in the retention of students, the cyber security modules will use Model Eliciting Activities, a teaching and learning methodology that has been demonstrated to be particularly effective for women and other groups that are underrepresented in engineering. The project includes a partnership between the team of computing and education researchers at Texas A&M University-San Antonio and the computing departments of rural Laredo Community College and urban San Antonio College, both of which are Hispanic-serving community colleges. The community college partnerships will increase opportunities for student transfer, while the curriculum changes and use of inclusive pedagogy should increase the likelihood that students persist and graduate with degrees in computing that can enable them to launch careers within computing fields. Through a design experiment methodology, the project will investigate the impact of Model Eliciting Activities and the incorporation of cyber security on instructor effectiveness and student attitudes and performance. This research results could inform the practices of other computer science and related programs that seek to increase student success and diversity in computing programs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.