A cascading mentoring pedagogy in a CS service learning course to broaden participation and perceptions

Abstract

This study reports on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a service-learning course based on a "cascading mentoring" model linking together the faculty, administration, and undergraduates of an urban university's computer science department with local high school students. We present findings from surveys and post-interviews that illustrate undergraduates' and high school students' experiences in the program and how their perceptions of computing and mentoring changed based upon the outreach. In our discussion, we focus on the institutional and conceptual challenges of implementing the community service course within the university's computer science department, while also highlighting the learning opportunities for streamlining such a model for future iterations.

Does Outreach Impact Choices of Major for Underrepresented Undergraduate Students?

“…A lack of diversity has existed in the field of computer science for decades, although the issue has taken on new urgency in recent years as the popular press has drawn attention to the low numbers of ethnic minorities earning degrees in computer science in the U.S. For example, the 2013 Taulbee Survey shows that while 41.3% of computer science Ph.D.s granted by U.S. institutions are earned by American citizens, only 12.9% are granted to ethnic minorities with 9.5% to Asians and 3.4% to all other minorities combined [85].…”

Understanding Mentor Needs in Online Engineering Outreach

“…Student volunteers are interested in improving their professional and technical skills and can often benefit from volunteering by receiving course credits or other honours proffered by the institution [9][10][11]. In mentoring opportunities some reasons that students enrolled was because they were interested in influencing the next generation, enjoy teaching [12], or wanted to develop specific skills [13]. Other motives such as selfenhancement and intrinsic satisfaction may also play a role [14].…”

“…It is worth noting that mentoring relationships can help achieve positive outcomes even when identities like race and gender are not matched [17,19]. Furthermore, benefits extend beyond mentees; Undergraduate mentors are likely to experience improved academic performance, better personal skills, and higher retention rates [13,20].…”

“…Several science and engineering outreach programs have training programs for mentors. Mentor training modules cover lessons such as learning about specific activities or subject areas [11][12][13]25], guidance on educational practices [12,13,25,26], creating inclusive environments [8,12,27], developing competencies [11,26,28], and more, including combinations of these modules.…”

The Impact of Undergraduate Mentorship on Student Satisfaction and Engagement, Teamwork Performance, and Team Dysfunction in a Software Engineering Group Project

“…Mentoring relationships are common in professional practice, and are increasingly being introduced into the computing curriculum to expose students to mentoring relationships, both as mentees and mentors. Mentoring models in undergraduate computer science education and experience reports with these models are reported in [11] and [7]. Holmes et al [5] describe how, for a capstone course where students collaborate with open-source projects, industrial mentors are assigned to students.…”