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Near-peer Led Workshops on Game Development for Broadening Participation and Diversity in Computing

Authors:

Wei Jin,

Xin XuAuthors Info & Claims

ACMSE '19: Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Southeast Conference

Pages 39 - 45

https://doi.org/10.1145/3299815.3314430

Published: 18 April 2019 Publication History

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Abstract

The goal of a technology-focused service-learning course at an open access, baccalaureate degree granting institution is to increase the confidence and persistence of students, especially underrepresented students, in computing. An earlier study has shown the positive impact for the students enrolled in the service-learning course. In this paper, we evaluate the service part of the course, outreach activities that aim to let young people get excited about technology. Specifically, we evaluate the effectiveness of the near-peer outreach activities in the form of light-weight workshops for game development.

One major activity conducted by the service-learning students is to develop games and then conduct workshops for lower class students (mostly freshmen) in Introduction to Computing, a general education course. In the workshops, the audience will develop miniature versions of the games that the service-learning students have developed. This makes the workshops fun and light-weight, taking only one-class period and allows our students to reach many classes and a large audience.

In addition to reaching a large audience, data shows that this game-based, light-weight and near-peer led workshops are very effective in attracting diverse early college students into programming. Based on this observation, we make suggestions for future activities in outreach, which we believe are also applicable outside our service-learning course context.

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Robledo Yamamoto FBarker LVoida A(2024)Faculty, Student, and Community Partner Experiences in Computer and Information Science Service LearningACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/365467824:3(1-26)Online publication date: 24-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3654678
Harrell RLentz SRobledo Yamamoto FVoida ABarker LStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Putting the Service into Service Learning: A Report on a Survey of CS FacultyProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630910(470-476)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630910
Bani-Taha OArya ATaylor D(2024)Co-design of educational social games with newcomer children: a case study of arabic-speaking migrant tweensBehaviour & Information Technology10.1080/0144929X.2024.2307449(1-24)Online publication date: 24-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2024.2307449
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Index Terms

Near-peer Led Workshops on Game Development for Broadening Participation and Diversity in Computing
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education

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Published In

ACMSE '19: Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Southeast Conference

April 2019

295 pages

ISBN:9781450362511

DOI:10.1145/3299815

Conference Chair:
Dan Lo
Kennesaw State University
,
Program Chair:
Donghyun Kim
Kennesaw State University
,
Publications Chair:
Eric Gamess
Jacksonville State University

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 18 April 2019

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ACM SE '19: 2019 ACM Southeast Conference

April 18 - 20, 2019

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Robledo Yamamoto FBarker LVoida A(2024)Faculty, Student, and Community Partner Experiences in Computer and Information Science Service LearningACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/365467824:3(1-26)Online publication date: 24-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3654678
Harrell RLentz SRobledo Yamamoto FVoida ABarker LStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Putting the Service into Service Learning: A Report on a Survey of CS FacultyProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630910(470-476)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630910
Bani-Taha OArya ATaylor D(2024)Co-design of educational social games with newcomer children: a case study of arabic-speaking migrant tweensBehaviour & Information Technology10.1080/0144929X.2024.2307449(1-24)Online publication date: 24-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2024.2307449
Robledo Yamamoto FBarker LVoida A(2023)CISing Up Service Learning: A Systematic Review of Service Learning Experiences in Computer and Information ScienceACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/361077623:3(1-56)Online publication date: 12-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610776
Long DMathieu DPham TXu XJin W(2023)From Coding to Creativity: Using Dancing Sphero Robots to Inspire STEM LearningProceedings of the 24th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education10.1145/3585059.3611419(180-181)Online publication date: 11-Oct-2023
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Garcia PPerez MFarrell DBork SEricson BMondisa J(2021)Supporting Mutually Beneficial Near-Peer Mentoring Relationships Within Computing Education Programs2021 Conference on Research in Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT)10.1109/RESPECT51740.2021.9620669(1-9)Online publication date: 23-May-2021
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Holanda MOrtiz-Lopez KSilva DFuruta R(2021)Educational Initiatives to Increase Diversity in CS1 Courses: A Literature Mapping of U.S. efforts2021 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE49875.2021.9637445(1-8)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2021
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Broadening participation in computing: the multi-tiered approach

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Training Near-Peer Mentors for Instructional Roles in Informal K-12 Computing Programs

Promoting diversity in computing

Broadening participation in computing: the multi-tiered approach

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