Contributing to success in an introductory computer science course: a study of twelve factors
Proceedings of the thirty-second SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer Science Education
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Defensive climate in the computer science classroom
SIGCSE '02 Proceedings of the 33rd SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Teaching entering students to think like computer scientists
Proceedings of the 36th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
Using daily student presentations to address attitudes and communication skills in CS1
Proceedings of the 40th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
Labs first: a computer scientist's guide to teaching management information systems
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
Learning styles: novices decide
ITiCSE '09 Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Personality types of IT professors
Proceedings of the 10th ACM conference on SIG-information technology education
Broadening student enthusiasm for computer science with a great insights course
Proceedings of the 41st ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
Five focused strategies for increasing retention in Computer Science 1
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
Building a thriving CS program at a small liberal arts college
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
Engaging students in computing using GameSalad: a pilot study
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
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Retention is an important issue for Computer Science Departments. In many cases students leave the major due to frustrations with programming in the complex languages often used in CS1 and CS2 or because they do not understand that computer science is much more than programming. We have redesigned our introductory sequence to include a rigorous, non-programming introduction to the field and a CS1 course which uses Scheme so that students can focus on the principles of programming instead of the complexities of a particular language. In the first year that we have required these courses in our major, we have had positive results. In this paper, we describe what we have learned through discussions with students and student surveys.