Bio1 as CS1: evaluating a crossdisciplinary CS context

  • Authors:

  • Zachary Dodds;Ran Libeskind-Hadas;Eliot Bush

  • Affiliations:

  • Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA, USA;Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA, USA;Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 17th ACM annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

We present the curriculum, deployment, and initial evaluation of a course, BioCS1, designed to serve as an introductory course in both biology and CS. Co-taught by professors in both fields, BioCS1 interweaves fundamental biology and computational topics in a manner similar to contextual approaches to CS1. In contrast to other contextual approaches, however, BioCS1 emphasizes both CS and its context equally. The results suggest that such cross-disciplinary collaborations can thrive at the introductory level, just as they have later in the curriculum.