Developing a computational textiles curriculum to increase diversity in computer science

Abstract

The current culture surrounding computer science is quite narrow, resulting in a participating population that lacks diversity in both gender and interests. The field of computational textiles has shown promise as a domain for diversifying computer science culture by drawing a population with broader, less traditional interests and backgrounds into creating technology; however, little effort has been made to build resources and communities around computational textiles. This thesis presents a curriculum that teaches computer science and computer programming through a series of lessons for building and programming computational textile projects, along with systematic considerations that support the real-world implementation of such a curriculum. In 2011-12, we conducted three workshops to evaluate the impact of our curriculum methods and projects on students' technological self-efficacy. As a result of data obtained from these workshops, we conclude that working with our curriculum's structured computational textile projects both draws a gender-diverse population, and increases students' comfort with, enjoyment of, and interest in working with electronics and programming. Accordingly, we are transforming the curriculum into a published book in order to provide educational resources to support the development of a computer science culture around computational textiles.