Home
Lectures
"Regular" CS × Inclusive Design = Smarter Students and Greater Diversity

"Regular" CS × Inclusive Design = Smarter Students and Greater Diversity

Speaker: Margaret Burnett – Corvallis, OR, United States
Topic(s): Human Computer Interaction

Abstract

What if "regular" Computer Science (CS) faculty each taught elements of inclusive design in "regular" CS courses across an undergraduate curriculum? Would it affect the CS program's education climate and inclusiveness to diverse students? Would it improve retention? Would students learn less CS? Would they actually learn any inclusive design?

This talk describes the outcomes of 613 students who experienced the course offerings of the 13 CS faculty who tried this approach. These faculty integrated elements of inclusive design from the GenderMag inclusive design method into 44 CS/IT offerings across a 4-year curriculum. The results exceeded our wildest hopes! Among them were significant improvements in student retention, their grades, their ratings of their faculty, and their ratings of the education climate’s inclusiveness. Further, the students later acted on what they learned -- the software products they created were judged by inclusive design experts (who were blind to the before vs. after condition) to be more inclusive than the software products of the students who had come before.

The talk also describes how the 13 faculty acquired the skills they needed to learn to succeed at this endeavor, with a reasonably low amount of effort. To equip them for success, we created a faculty workshop curriculum that helped pair CS faculty -- including non-HCI faculty -- with inclusive design elements they chose for their own courses. The faculty workshop curriculum equipped 88% of these faculty with enough inclusive design teaching knowledge to successfully embed actionable inclusive design skill-building into 44 of their CS/IT course offerings across the CS curriculum.

Finally, the talk takes a peek at future directions. This talk is part of my "change the world for the better" agenda. Perhaps after this talk, some in the audience will want to join me in this effort.

About this Lecture

Number of Slides: 35 - 50
Duration: 45 - 75 minutes
Languages Available: English
Last Updated:

Request this Lecture

To request this particular lecture, please complete this online form.

Request a Tour

To request a tour with this speaker, please complete this online form.

All requests will be sent to ACM headquarters for review.