In this paper, we describe the development of an in-class exercise designed to teach students how to craft social engineering attacks. Specifically, we focus on the development of phishing emails. Providing an opportunity to craft offensive attacks not only helps prepare students for a career in penetration testing but can also enhance their…

Cybersecurity education is becoming increasingly important in modern society, and hands-on practice is an essential element. Although instructors provide hands-on labs in their cybersecurity courses, traditional lab exercises often fail to effectively motivate students. Hence, many instructors desire to incorporate gamification in hands-on…

Background: Engineering curricula often consist of separate courses that do not form a cohesive learning experience. Researchers revised an undergraduate computer engineering curriculum at an urban university, seeking to improve motivation and achievement in an important population that is traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields.…

This paper presents field-tested improvements over an 11-year period of a large-scale "Introduction to Information Systems" core business school course and provides a framework for implementation. Engagement and learning in large-scale courses can prove challenging, especially when the class is a requirement within a business school's…

This study explored students' perceptions of a flipped classroom for an introductory programming class. Students were required to watch video lectures and read lecture notes in advance (pre-class self-study) to prepare themselves for the in-class lectures and tutorials. A mix-methods approach was employed: quantitative survey (n=204) and…

This case describes a classroom activity that explores a fictional software product company to help students learn about ways that businesses make money from software, including Free & Open Source Software (FOSS). The activity shows how a company might evolve through different business models, but does not imply that some models are always…

Objectives: Computer Science (CS) education has become increasingly prevalent in elementary schools because of multiple rationales, such as the importance of computational literacy and the growing demand for CS-related workforce preparation. As elementary CS standards continue to be adopted by many states, more examples and voices from the field…

Making students become intrinsically motivated to participate in daily class activities is an open challenge that has been addressed in different ways. In this article, we evaluate the impact of an educational innovation project, named TrivialCV, in terms of student motivation, engagement, and learning outcomes. We analyze the impact of two types…

With the increasing availability of synchronous video-based breakout rooms within online courses, a growing need exists to understand how to best leverage this technology for enhanced online education. To help address this challenge, this paper reports on a case study that explored student activity within online video-based breakout rooms via a…

In computer science education at school, computational thinking has been an emerging topic over the last decade. Even though, computational thinking is interpreted and integrated in classrooms in different ways, an identification process about what computational thinking is about has been in progress among computer science school-teachers and…

Online textbooks allow instructors to provide interactive and engaging activities for students. In this paper, we look at how providing an interactive online textbook is utilized and valued in a beginning computer programming course. In addition, we compare the utilization of the online textbook to the student final course grade. Our findings…

Student performance in classes can be affected by lack of attendance and attention while in class. This paper examines the effect of student participation on performance in two Computer Science classes. Attendance and attentiveness are automatically recorded by the videoconferencing software used for the classes. Student participation is measured…

The automated water filtration design challenge integrates computer programming and basic electronics concepts through the SIMILAR systems engineering design process. The SIMILAR systems design process is to state the problem, investigate alternatives, model the system, integrate the system, launch the system, assess performance, and reevaluate…

Background and Context: Making is celebrated for bringing exciting tools and learning opportunities to non-traditional designers. However, people with disabilities may find themselves excluded from many making activities and makerspaces. This exclusion is present in making and computer science more broadly. Objective: We describe a university…

The Computer Science Unplugged activities and project has been an influential STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) initiative, providing enrichment and teaching activities supporting computational thinking. Many of its activities are suitable for children. One of the most popular Unplugged activities is "Kid Krypto",…