Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Computing in Undergraduate Education (IUSE: CUE)

Overview

<p>Increasingly, undergraduate computer science (CS) programs are being called upon to prepare larger and more diverse student populations for careers in both CS and non-CS fields, including careers in scientific and non-scientific disciplines. Many of these students aim to acquire the understandings and competencies needed to learn how to use computation collaboratively across different contexts and challenging problems. However, standard CS course sequences do not always serve these students well. With this solicitation, NSF will support teams of Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) in re-envisioning the role of computing in interdisciplinary collaboration within their institutions. In addition, NSF will encourage partnering IHEs to use this opportunity to integrate the study of ethics into their curricula, both within core CS courses and across the relevant interdisciplinary application areas.</p> <p>This IUSE: CUE solicitation supports the initial formation of teams from multiple IHEs to work together to re-envision how CS education can better support the ubiquitous role of computation across disciplines and within interdisciplinary teams and projects. The efforts should include disciplinary faculty across a broad range of STEM disciplines, including education researchers. It is anticipated that future IUSE: CUE solicitations will support more extensive implementations by successful teams and projects.</p> <p>Two requirements further define this program:</p> <ol> <li>Curricular reforms undertaken by a single IHE often have limited impact on the larger academic community. This solicitation intends to build community around efforts that are robust and operate across a range of IHEs. With that in mind, IUSE: CUE will fund collaborations of 3 to 5 IHEs working together, structured and functioning (formally or informally) as a Networked Improvement Community (NIC).[1]</li> <li>in many cases, the students who are now gravitating to CS courses to support their non-CS majors are more diverse than those in traditional CS programs. Thus, the IUSE: CUE effort comes with an opportunity to recruit, welcome, and retain a much broader group of students, thereby benefiting all CS students and, more widely, the computing disciplines as a whole. With this in mind, IUSE: CUE requires that all proposals include specific efforts to broaden participation in computing (BPC).</li> </ol>