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Challenges and Approaches to Teaching CS1 in Prison

Authors:

Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj,

William G. Griswold,

Leo PorterAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE 2024: Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1

Pages 512 - 518

https://doi.org/10.1145/3626252.3630802

Published: 07 March 2024 Publication History

Abstract

Efforts to bring incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals into the field of computing stand to improve equitable access to both computing jobs, and consequently the benefits of our tools and innovations through the inclusion of more diverse perspectives. This report describes the design and execution of a college level introductory computing course conducted with 26 students currently incarcerated at a prison in the United States in Fall 2022. We discuss the ways that the prison environment and the student body differ from traditional college computing classes, and how this impacted the design and execution of the course. We found that despite significant environmental barriers to learning to program, such as not having access to a code interpreter, there were unique affordances of the student population, including maturity and community, that could be leveraged in the course design and policies. We conclude with many lessons learned for the purpose of improving future offerings of computing courses in prisons.

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Cited By

Hermans FSchlesinger AEdwards JTaeumel M(2024)A Case for Feminism in Programming Language DesignProceedings of the 2024 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software10.1145/3689492.3689809(205-222)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689492.3689809
Hogan EMonga MLonati VBarendsen ESheard JPaterson J(2024)Improving Computing Higher Education in PrisonsProceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 210.1145/3649405.3659474(834-835)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649405.3659474

Index Terms

Challenges and Approaches to Teaching CS1 in Prison
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Adult education
      2. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
        CS1

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cover image ACM Conferences

SIGCSE 2024: Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1

March 2024

1583 pages

ISBN:9798400704239

DOI:10.1145/3626252

General Chairs:
Ben Stephenson
University of Calgary, Canada6000230660002306
,
Jeffrey A. Stone
Penn State University6000143960001439
,
Program Chairs:
Lina Battestilli
North Carolina State University, USA6000492360004923
,
Samuel A. Rebelsky
Grinnell College60028806
,
Libby Shoop
Macalester College60028787

Copyright © 2024 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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SIGCSE: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education

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Published: 07 March 2024

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

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Cited By

Hermans FSchlesinger AEdwards JTaeumel M(2024)A Case for Feminism in Programming Language DesignProceedings of the 2024 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software10.1145/3689492.3689809(205-222)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689492.3689809
Hogan EMonga MLonati VBarendsen ESheard JPaterson J(2024)Improving Computing Higher Education in PrisonsProceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 210.1145/3649405.3659474(834-835)Online publication date: 8-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649405.3659474

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