Student-centered practices are practices that focus on providing engaging and equitable experiences to students in our classroom. These strategies have grown in popularity over the past decade, but the general impact of these practices on student perceptions remains unclear. Building on our prior work, this study examines four such practices: late-submission, resubmission, review sessions, and meeting students across two introductory computing courses with contrasting class sizes at different institutions. We identify qualitative themes from open-ended survey responses that reveal insights about how students experience these practices, with emphasis on differences between the two courses. These findings contribute to ongoing efforts to create supportive and effective learning environments in STEM, providing actionable insights for educators aiming to improve engagement, academic confidence, and overall success.

Pedagogical practices that promote equity in the classroom play a crucial role in broadening participation and enhancing student success. These practices directly address the critical challenge of low diversity in the field of computing.

In this research full paper, we report on the results of a large-scale study to answer the following research question: What is the impact of the late submission practice on students' perception of their sense of belonging, confidence, and performance, their actual performance in the course, and other experiences in their course?; Does the impact differ by different socioeconomic, and demographic student groups (e.g. ethnicity/race, gender, first-generation, transfer-student status, work status, etc.), and whether students utilized or did not utilize the practice? Being intentional in fostering an environment where diverse groups of students can thrive in a discipline can contribute to increasing diversity in the corresponding workforce. This is especially true for fields like Computer Science and Engineering where lack of diversity continues to be a major challenge. One way to broaden participation and increase student success is the adoption of equitable pedagogical and grading practices. In this paper, we describe students' perception of performance, confidence, and sense of belonging (SoB) when they are permitted to submit coursework past a set deadline. We report on the data in the context of the different student groups outlined above. Our hypothesis is that such practice contributes to improved student performance by focusing on learning rather than grades. Our results show that students highly valued this practice and provided a 4+ rating on a 5-point Likert scale, indicating a positive perception and more specifically perceived them as having a positive impact on their SoB, confidence, and performance. This practice also helped in improving students' course performances. This work will help in understanding the empirical evidence of the impact of this practice on student experiences across various student groups.

This innovative practice full paper describes a large-scale implementation and evaluation of an academic integrity module tailored for students in the Computer Science Program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The module aims to educate students about academic misconduct, its consequences, and strategies to prevent it. While various approaches exist to tackle academic misconduct in computing, our approach is unique in two ways. First, it is a proactive approach that seeks to educate and empower students on this important topic, to help them be responsible for their actions in the academic setting, and be aware of the potential consequences they may face if they resort to academic integrity violations, rather than face potentially punitive consequences. Second, we incorporate scenarios and information that are specifically relevant to the Computing discipline throughout the module. This paper presents the module's design, outcomes from its large-scale deployment, student feedback on its effectiveness, and reasons students typically resort to academic integrity violations. Additionally, it discusses plans for continuous improvement based on student input and information about emerging tools and technologies (e.g., Artificial Intelligence powered tools). We expect that this paper will help guide the rapid adoption, deployment, and evaluation of such a program -specific academic integrity learning module at other institutions. We expect that our module itself can be adapted to other computing programs with only a small amount of effort.

Lack of diversity is a major challenge in CS education. One way to broaden participation and increase student success is the adoption of equitable pedagogical and grading practices. Lack of evaluation of such practices within the context of undergraduate CS education results in less adoption. This study is the first step in a broader project examining such practices and their impact on undergraduate CS students. Factors such as confidence and sense-of-belonging have been linked to increase students' success. In this study, we report on the evaluation of four practices commonly adopted in pursuit of equity, in terms of students' perceptions and how they impact students' sense-of-belonging, confidence, and performance in a computer science course. We report on students' feedback from a CS2 course in the Spring 2023 semester. Our results show that students valued these practices and perceived them as having a positive impact on their course experience in relation to these constructs. Students also reported that these practices gave them better control of their learning, allowed them to learn from their mistakes, and have a better understanding of the course content.

With the rise in enrollment in computing programs, online learning offers the flexibility to scale up enrollment. To help students succeed in an online course, evidence-based engagement strategies need to be incorporated and evaluated for their effectiveness in increasing student engagement, which is a key determinant of student learning outcomes. This also addresses a concern with online learning, where students often feel detached and disengaged. In this innovative practice full paper, we describe our implementation of a study group strategy that we employed to increase students' engagement across different online formats of an upper-level computing course. Study groups are intended to allow students to discuss course concepts, foster social-emotional engagement, and provide positive learning experiences rather than being dependent on group members to complete a task or receive a grade. Although the strategy has been implemented in face-to-face computing courses, it has not been implemented and evaluated in different online formats of a computing course. The primary contribution of this study is the empirical evidence of the impact of study groups on students' learning outcome and engagement across the online formats of the course. The context of this study is an upper-level web-development course offered in different online formats, including online asynchronous in Spring 2020, online asynchronous and online hybrid in Fall 2020, and online synchronous in Spring 2021, where the study group strategy was employed. Three semesters of data collection were conducted using questionnaires administered at the beginning and end of the courses. Students learning outcomes and engagement were not significantly different between the different online course formats, allowing us to compare across the courses. Findings indicate that a study group strategy has a positive relationship with participation engagement in all of the online course formats. However, study groups may not directly influence learning outcomes. A study group strategy may improve learning outcomes in an online environment if the instructor facilitates the study group's work. This study has implications for utilizing study groups in different online formats of upper-level computing courses.

In recent years, Academic Integrity (AI) cases in the Computer Science (CS) discipline are on the rise, with students often being unaware of what constitutes a violation and its potential consequences. This prompted us to develop an AI module that aims to educate CS undergraduate students to recognize misconduct in academic scenarios, their potential consequences, and recall strategies/resources to avoid misconduct in the CS context. We have deployed this module in eight CS courses in UNC Charlotte. In this poster, we present our motivation, design guidelines, deployment details, and the results of a study based on data collected in Spring and Fall 2021.

To address the increasing enrollment in Computer Science (CS), face-to-face (F2F) courses are often redesigned to online courses. For the success of a large-enrollment online CS class, it is important to design it with effective strategies that can enhance student learning and engagement. With this aim, we developed an online, third year web-development course, and redesigned its existing F2F version. This study focuses on examining the course strategies utilized in the two versions of of the course, and how students' learning and engagement vary between these two offerings. In Fall 2019, we conducted experimental research with pre- and post-tests to collect data from these two sections. The participants of the study include 51 out of 103 online students, and 38 out of 72 F2F students. We identified course strategies that were more valuable to one group versus the other, and both the sections. In terms of student learning, we found that there was no significant difference between these sections. Behavioral engagement measures depicted how the online and F2F students engaged within their courses, and how it is related to students' learning. We also found how the level of engagement varied in the online course according to the engagement factors that include performance, emotions, skills, and participation. The results of this study will inform online, F2F, and hybrid course design of upper-level CS courses.

Despite the demand for Computer Science (CS) related jobs that women in computing can join, there has been a decline in the number of women earning a bachelor's degree in the United States from 27% in 1997 to 19% in 2016. To reduce this gap, promote gender diversity in computing and retain students, a mentorship program was created within a computing program in a university with high research activity in the southeastern US. In this program, women undergraduate CS students are paired with corporate mentors for career guidance and support. This study focuses on understanding students' experiences, including transfer students, when participating in this mentorship program. The women transfer students' perspectives are especially critical as there are a limited number of studies highlighting their experiences, which may vary from traditional women students. In spring 2020, we implemented an IRB-approved phenomenology study. We conducted semi-structured interviews with five women undergraduate CS students, among which four were transfer students. The inductive analysis of the data shows that the mentorship program impacted students' personal as well as professional spaces. Within each of these spaces, students are impacted by the program, their mentors, and their peers in the program. The program impacts are presented here.

Asynchronous, online courses are being designed from face-to-face (F2F) versions to provide the flexibility to scale-up enrollment [3]. To support student success in large-enrollment online classes, it is important to design online courses with strategies that enhance student engagement, which impacts achievement due to the changes in the learning environment[1]. F2F course strategies that are known to engage students may not work for online formats, and engaging online students can be difficult as students often feel isolated and detached [2]. There are a limited number of studies that report on or compare course strategies for online students. Strategies that support student success in online course offerings are valuable for student engagement, especially for upper-level programming intensive courses in computer science (CS)[4].

Cybersecurity education has been emphasized by several national organizations in the United States, including the National Academy of Engineering, which recognizes securing cyberspace as one of the 14 Engineering Grand Challenges. To prepare students for such challenges and to enhance cybersecurity education opportunities at our large research university, we implemented an NSF-funded cybersecurity education project. This project is a collaborative effort between faculty and graduate students in the Engineering Education, Computer Science (CS) and Computer Engineering (CPE) departments at a major US research university. In this effort, we integrated cybersecurity learning modules into multiple existing core CS and CPE courses following Jerome Bruner's spiral-theory model, which has previously been used to reformulate several academic curricula. In this paper, we present our cybersecurity curriculum initiative, describe the spiral-theory based process we developed to implement the curriculum and provide an in-depth description of four reusable cybersecurity learning modules that we developed. A core tenet of spiral theory holds to revisit topics as students advance through their curriculum. This work applies this approach to Cybersecurity education by carefully designing the learning objectives of the modules and its contents. For evaluating these learning modules we implemented pre and post-tests to assess students' technical knowledge, their perceptions towards the modules' learning objectives, and how it influenced their motivation to learn cybersecurity. Our findings are overwhelmingly positive and the students' feedback has helped us improve these learning modules. Since its inception, our initiative has educated more than $2\,000$ students and is currently being used to revise the affected courses' syllabi.

The current emphasis on cybersecurity worldwide, demonstrates the importance of this topic. This poster describes a unique NSF funded project that aims to create cybersecurity education opportunities at Virginia Tech (VT). It is a collaborative effort among faculty and graduate students in the Engineering Education, Computer Science (CS), Electrical and Computer Engineering (includes two majors, Electrical Engineering (EE) and Computer Engineering (CPE)) Departments, and the Hume Center in the College of Engineering at VT. The goal is to integrate cybersecurity modules into eight required CS and CPE courses, from freshman to junior levels, utilizing Jeremy Bruner's spiral-theory-based1,2 curriculum model. A spiraling theme of "handling threats to software for securing information" is chosen that will be returned to repeatedly as learners advance in their knowledge and intellectual capacity. Cybersecurity goals of the Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Authenticity, Anonymity, Assurance (CIA/AAA) triad, as appropriate for various academic levels, are adopted to develop the cybersecurity modules. Each module engages students in an authentic activity that reinforces the cybersecurity concepts. The project includes an engineering education research component, which is focused on evaluating the effectiveness of the curriculum in enhancing students' knowledge, skills, and motivation in cybersecurity concepts. The first year of the project has been completed by introducing cybersecurity modules into four courses (CS: Introduction to Software Design, and Software Design and Data Structures, and CPE: Engineering Problem Solving with C++, and Data Structures and Algorithms) impacting ~1600 students. The details of curriculum development, implementation and, preliminary findings of the research will be presented.