Many educators have noted the benefits of providing undergraduate students a research experience including increased retention, greater interest in graduate school, and an enhanced educational experience. Different approaches and guidelines have been proposed to accommodate the constraints of working with undergraduate students such as lack of academic maturity, limited student time, and a less developed knowledge base. In our Computer Science program, we have attempted to integrate various aspects of a general approach to research in courses throughout the major. Students get more in-depth exposure and practice in conducting elements of research as they progress through the major.The experience is culminated in two senior-level activities with major research components. In these activities, students are faced with ill-defined problems requiring extensive background investigation and must develop a unique idea to implement, analyze, and formally report on. This paper will describe the general research approach taught, how students are introduced to various aspects of the approach in their courses, and the senior-level experiences in detail with specific examples. The paper concludes with our experience regarding the effectiveness of this approach in providing a research experience.

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When students are learning to develop algorithms, they very often spend more time dealing with issues of syntax rather than solving the problem. Additionally, the textual nature of most programming environments works against the learning style of the majority of students. RAPTOR is a visual programming environment, designed specifically to help students envision their algorithms and avoid syntactic baggage. RAPTOR programs are created visually and can be executed visually by tracing the execution through the program. Required syntax is kept to a minimum. Students preferred expressing their algorithms visually, and were more successful creating algorithms using RAPTOR than using a traditional language or writing flowcharts.

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Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to a penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number.