Responding to Differences in Majors’ and Non-Majors’ Experiences and Outcomes in First Year

In this Supper Series we will present our work evaluating introductory Computer Science courses. We found that non-CS majors' experiences and outcomes in our existing introductory first-year programming course were worse than those of intended CS majors. In response, we developed a new introductory programming course that is aimed at meeting the needs of the diverse population of non-CS major students interested in our courses. We will discuss the motivation for creating this new course, the curriculum design, and some key themes that have arisen in our course evaluation including workload and pacing, motivation, and personal relevance. We will invite participants to consider these themes in relation to their own courses or projects.