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Project Description

Recent statistics indicates that although being about one third of U.S. populations, only 10.3% of bachelor’s degrees in computer science are granted to underrepresented and minority population. It is also reported that minority students express the desire to go into CS and other STEM major at the same rate as students with other ethnicities, however more minorities switch to another major after being enrolled to a STEM program. Similar problem is being experienced at the CS department of Winston-Salem state university (WSSU), an HBCU, in terms of students beginning with CS/IT as their major and then dropping out or changing their majors. A major proportion of the student who choose to stay in computing field also encounter significant learning barriers which prohibits active participation and persistence in learning. Many of our CS undergraduates are first generation college students in their families and lack of direction and proper guidance from their families typically cause an obstacle to perseverance in learning. Additionally, many of them have a low sense of self-efficacy regarding to the mathematical, programming and technical aspects which prevents them from actively participating in the classroom environment.

Researchers at Rochester Institute of Technology have reported that their use of a technology-rich learning environment in several undergraduate engineering-technology courses has improved learning and decreased withdrawals from, or failing grades in, the courses. Boston University adopted tablet-based problem solving exercises in their freshman mathematics class and reported noticeable increase in student attendance and course completion. Many other approaches also reported enhanced educational experiences when technology such as mobile devices has been adopted in the classroom.

2010 Pew study of mobile device usage revealed that African American and Latinos are the most active users of the Internet from mobile devices. The study also revealed that minority cell phone owners take advantage of a much greater range of their phones’ features compared with other ethnicities. At WSSU, it is common for students to multi-task and use their mobile devices while in class, studying, or performing other activities. The effect of such behavior when mobile devices are used for learning purposes is not well understood and there are proponents who think of them as quite disruptive. We believe that use of such devices in the classroom for solving interactive problems will enhance African American student’s abilities to engage and complete tasks in their preferred interaction mode.

Inspired by the Pew study and the reported impact of utilizing technology-rich class environment at other institutions, the proposed project aims to design, develop and incorporate a Mobile Classroom Response System (MRS) in the undergraduate education of a primarily African American student population to enhance student’s engagement, active learning and problem solving skills. By using mobile devices, we expect shy students to interact anonymously and participate in class discussions. By asynchronously prompting students with interactive problems related to the lecture material in their mobile computing devices, we expect students to maintain more focus on the course content being presented and ultimately to learn and retain information better.

Goals

The specific goals of this project are to:

  • Improve student achievement in math and problem solving.
  • Improve the quality and the quantity of minority graduates in STEM workforce or graduate school.
  • Increase understanding of issues related to the use of mobile devices in teaching and learning.
  • Disseminate study results, developed instructional software and course modules to other institutions.

We expect that the adaptation of MRS in the classroom will increase student engagement and active learning. Also, students will improve their problem solving capabilities and therefore be prepared better to enter the computing workforce or graduate study. By incorporating mobile devices in learning and classroom interaction, Computer Science department at Winston-Salem state university is also expected to increase its effectiveness to attract and retain students.