In this workshop National Science Foundation (NSF) program directors from two different directorates will share information about programs and funding opportunities focused on institutional and PI research capacity building. As is well known, NSF offers a wide variety of funding opportunities to promote discovery in science and engineering, accelerate technology and innovation, and advance diversity in science and engineering. This workshop aims to improve participants' knowledge about 1) capacity building programs in NSF, specifically in Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and Directorate for STEM Education (EDU) directorates, 2) writing competitive NSF proposals, and 3) designing effective project evaluation plans and budgets. The workshop will include a panel of successful principal investigators (PIs) who will share their insights on successful grant-writing and implementation. This workshop will provide an opportunity for the participants to engage with NSF program directors, an NSF evaluator, and successful PIs that could potentially help them identify appropriate funding opportunities and develop a strong NSF proposal. The workshop will include a mix of presentations, panel discussion, hands-on activities, and question and answer session.

This paper presents a model for a 14-week virtual peer mentoring (VPM) program created during the COVID-19 pandemic to develop a community and a sense of belonging among freshmen and rising sophomores in computing. The impact of the pandemic on the students at Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC), an open-access, majority minority-serving institution in the southeast was especially devastating. The sudden shift from fully face-to-face to fully online instruction created a sense of isolation and significantly impacted student enrollment, withdrawal, and failure rates. In VPM, upper-level Information Technology (IT) students served as peer mentors, providing guidance and support to first-generation and Pell-grant recipient mentees, mostly incoming freshmen, and rising sophomores. Mentoring was structured and each peer mentor worked with a small group of mentees. Weekly mentor-mentee sessions covered topics such as growth mindset, problem-solving, self-efficacy, learning strategies, campus resources, and IT careers among others. Pre- and post-survey results from the pilot study conducted in Fall 2021 and Spring 2022 revealed improvements in students' sense of belonging. Analysis of enrollment data further demonstrated the program's effectiveness, with higher retention and progression rates among program completers. These findings highlight the success of the VPM program in enhancing students' sense of belonging in the IT department despite the insurmountable challenges posed by the pandemic. These findings motivate the authors to continue the program and conduct a longer study to investigate the impact of the program on other factors, such as self-efficacy, motivation, engagement, and graduation.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) supports engineering and computing education research that generates new knowledge about evidence-based practices and broadens participation in the engineering and computing workforce. Multiple NSF programs provide funding for projects that address current challenges in engineering and computing education at all levels of education including K-12, technical, undergraduate, and graduate education at different institutions (including HSIs). The goal of this workshop is for Program Director to provide prospective Principal Investigators with guidance on engineering and computing education funding opportunities at NSF and provide insights on preparing competitive proposals.

While many efforts exist to recruit underrepresented minorities in computing, retention of those that choose the field, still remains a challenge. To retain more women in computing at an open access, baccalaureate degree granting institution, the authors have been hosting a programming boot camp (PBC) for women IT and MIS majors at the institution since May 2014. PBC is a holistic program that focuses on academic preparation, professional development and mentoring. Freshman and sophomore women are invited to participate in this annual PBC each year. While some candidates accept the invitation to participate in the boot camp, some elect not to. The goal of this study is to investigate if participants progress and persist at a different rate than the invited candidates (non-participants) in their chosen field of study. This study compares the academic progression and retention data of candidates vs. participants over a period of three years (2014-2016). The authors look at measures such as current academic status, graduation rates, current (or graduation) major, and completion rates of programming sequence. Preliminary findings indicate that recruitment is a challenge without any incentives for participation. While participation in PBC alone cannot impact retention, this study investigates if students' participation or non-participation can be an indicator of their persistence in their chosen program. This information can be further used to create targeted initiatives meeting students' needs.

This project addresses the issue of retaining women in Information Technology (IT) at an open access institution. To meet the goal of retention, we focused on supporting students' learning and mentoring needs. Female IT majors and minors were recruited and participated in a weeklong summer boot camp. At the boot camp they participated in Java programming sessions, various professional development and peer mentoring sessions and a field trip. These activities were aimed to increase not only the participants' knowledge of programming, but they were also designed to increase the participants' confidence, their knowledge of IT careers and fields of research and most importantly to form a community of support. Initial data collection shows that 61% of participants enrolled in a programming course following the boot camp, which is a crucial step in retention of majors and minors. Authors have also experienced an increase in the participants' engagement in an on-campus community building effort. Formal data analysis of pre and post surveys for evaluating changes in computing attitudes and engagement is currently being performed.

Programming Boot Camp is one strategy to overcome the perceived and actual difficulties undergraduate students encounter in an introductory programming course. It is estimated that of the over two million students starting computer science studies in universities and colleges all over the world in 1999, 33% dropped or failed their first programming course. Consequently, undergraduate students delay enrolling in programming courses, which interrupts progress toward their degree and decreases confidence in their ability to succeed in college and computing careers. Programming Boot Camp provides a combination of intense programming labs with professional development and community building activities to help increase confidence, create awareness of opportunities, and build a supporting peer network. How does this strategy work on different campuses with different demographics? Attendees will be able to connect with people who have implemented boot camp, are interested in sharing resources, and discussing how appropriate a boot camp would be for their students. Those who have already implemented a boot camp will be encouraged to share their curriculum, workshop strategies, and how effective they were in goals like: increasing the programming skills of the participants and their confidence in it, inspiring participants to persist in computing, and building a network of mentors and peers to support persistence in computing. Participants who seek to increase success in programming courses will be encouraged to discuss campus specific needs to gather input from those who have implemented boot camps and how they adapted the concept to their population and institutional culture.

In this paper we describe our initiative to incorporate research, professional practice and methodologies into two undergraduate software engineering courses. As part of the Undergraduate Research Experience (URE) initiative on our campus, we modified two of our core software engineering courses. In our Software Development II (junior level) and Software Development Project (senior level) courses we integrated research projects, corporate visits and research talks to develop a deeper understanding of software engineering research and practice amongst our students.

The Java Wiki Integrated Development Environment (JavaWIDE) is an innovative environment that promotes active learning and collaboration in programming courses. This paper surveys how JavaWIDE's features have been used to promote active and collaborative learning in both traditional and distance education (synchronous) in four different environments: high school, summer enrichment courses, and at two- and four-year colleges. The authors describe the context of each teaching and learning environment and the parts of JavaWIDE that are particularly well suited in each context. After discussing the active learning and collaboration techniques employed, student responses to the experience are summarized. This collection of case studies illustrates how the concurrent editing, shared environment awareness and other features of JavaWIDE can be used to promote active learning and collaboration within a heterogeneous set of teaching and learning environments.

Mobile devices, such as the iPhone, are potentially powerful learning tools, with their touch screen capabilities and highly interactive and engaging applications available for download. The dependence of today's student on mobile devices also contributes to the possibility of increased student engagement and time-on-task -- both factors in student success. This paper describes the development of a mobile application (app) created as a learning tool for organic chemistry students. The learning needs of organic chemistry students studying the topic "functional groups" were first identified, appropriate learning theories were chosen, and then a functional prototype of the mobile application "TsoiChem" was designed and then created using Apple's iOS Software Development Kit. Unlike many existing chemistry applications, this application leverages the multi-touch feature of iPhone to teach fundamentals of functional groups to students and incorporated several learning theories and models in doing so. The ways in which learning theories and models helped inform the design of this mobile app will be discussed.