SESSION ONE by theme (13 respondents)
Student focus:
psychology
o
How can we effectively
recruit qualified students to our department? (CS, CIS) with little
budget & no time
o Are retention problems caused by a lack of skills or more by a lack of interest (that is, a bad career match for the student)? Is there a way to measure the interest (match) for entering CS majors?
o How do you tell the difference between lack of ability and lack of effort?
o Why do students major in CS?
o Why do students give up on CS?
o
What learning styles prompt both student learning and
retention?
career plans
o dot.com and outsourcing collapse has made this more difficult.
o
Retention as it relates to
job opportunities
o
How many of your BS
graduates go on to grad school or are interested in industrial research?
o Program name has considerable effect on recruitment
o Job prospects has considerable effect on recruitment and retention
gender
o
Retention as it relates to
females
o Why do we retain fewer females in CS?
Program focus:
math content
o What type of math?
o How can (?) go about these problems: Mathematic component of the program forces a lot of students to change their major to one with less math components.
o Program structure has considerable effect on retention (math courses required)
structure
o
Do you teach "research
methods", and if so, at what level?
o How can (?) go about these problems: Many students are not well prepared for introductory programming courses. Do not have the needed foundation.
o Are there gender effects if you teach logic?
o High-level courses have problems with lack of common background. How can we improve this?
o How to support students who ask for "more Hands-on Exercises?"
o Program structure has considerable effect on retention (this includes contents of various courses, sequence of various courses, programming (amount of programming req'd))
o
How can my dept. develop a formally stated set of
assessable outcomes for courses to promote consistency across offerings by
different instructors?
student support
o
How should we
support the recruited students? to retain them, so that they can succeed?
o What can we do to provide a support structure for the students?
o
How to broaden communication channel with students?
institutional view of program
o
Retention as it relates to
lack of institutional support
o
Retention as it relates to
the rigor in the program
o
Can we improve retention
without reducing standards?
o How to leverage faculty (Instructor) Expectation to studentsŐ background?
o What careers are we training these students for in CS?
o Are there retention issues that are unique to the computer science field? or are they the same for all fields?
SESSION ONE by theme (13 respondents)
Second pass:
Recruitment
o
How can we effectively
recruit qualified students to our department? (CS, CIS) with little
budget & no time
o Program name has considerable effect on recruitment
o Why do students major in CS?
o
Job prospects has considerable effect on recruitment
and retention
Retention
o
How should we
support the recruited students? to retain them, so that they can succeed?
o
Retention as it relates to
lack of institutional support
o
Retention as it relates to
the rigor in the program
o
Can we improve retention
without reducing standards?
o
Retention as it relates to
females
o
Retention as it relates to
job opportunities
o Job prospects has considerable effect on recruitment and retention
o
What learning styles prompt both student learning and
retention?
o Why do we retain fewer females in CS?
o Are there retention issues that are unique to the computer science field? or are they the same for all fields?
o Program structure has considerable effect on retention (this includes contents of various courses, sequence of various courses, programming (amount of programming req'd))
o How can (?) go about these problems: Mathematic component of the program forces a lot of students to change their major to one with less math components.
o Program structure has considerable effect on retention (math courses required)
o Why do students give up on CS?
o Are retention problems caused by a lack of skills or more by a lack of interest (that is, a bad career match for the student)? Is there a way to measure the interest (match) for entering CS majors?
o
How many of your BS
graduates go on to grad school or are interested in industrial research?