The Hatchery: An Agile and Effective Curricular Innovation for Transforming Undergraduate Education

Abstract

The Computer Science Professionals Hatchery utilizes strong partnerships with industry and a vertically integrated curriculum structure, embedding principles of ethics and social justice and diversity, to create a nurturing, software company environment for students that also provides tools to allow them to take on the challenges of real-life company environment. The goal is to produce graduates who are wellrounded, who have a shorter pathway to full productivity after graduation, who can be leaders, and who can operate as agents of positive change in the companies where they work. 1. The CS Professionals Hatchery The Computer Science Professionals (CSP) Hatchery seeks to transform undergraduate education in Computer Science by replicating the best elements of a software company environment, layering in moral, ethical, and social threads with entrepreneurship and professional skills. The goal is to create a curriculum and environment that produces graduates with the experience, training, and skills necessary to swiftly integrate into software company workflow and influence culture, shortening the path from graduation to being productive and beneficial. While this paper focuses on Computer Science Education, we believe that the Hatchery structure can be adapted to improve student outcomes in any subject area. Computer science curriculum often focuses on technical aspects while relegating ethics to a single course. Issues of inclusivity and teamwork aren’t integrated into the curriculum so cultural problems in the profession continue to be propagated. Industry complains about a lack of responsiveness to rapidly changing technologies, and a corresponding lack of real-world relevance in the curriculum – i.e. students may learn the theory but current technologies and practice are not sufficiently integrated into the curriculum. The CSP Hatchery is an attempt to address all of these problems. The CSP Hatchery utilizes a progressive academic curriculum structure where students at all grade levels work with each other. This structure focuses on three curricular innovations: (1) Infusion of ETHICS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE principles, starting at the first course taken by Freshmen CS majors and continuing throughout the curriculum. Our goal is to inseparably infuse ethical/moral elements into the practice of software engineering for our students, to empower our students to be agents of revolutionary change in reshaping the practice of computer science to be a more just and inclusive profession. (2) Short, narrowly focused, agile courses, which we call HATCHERY UNITS, are threaded with regular course work and are used to infuse foundational concepts and skills at key points into the curriculum. Industry involvement in the design and delivery of hatchery courses ensures that they focus on the skills and capabilities most useful to students in the work that they will actually perform in an industry setting. (3) Vertically Integrated Teaching and Learning (VITaL) curriculum. Instead of being in siloes, students at all grade levels work with and learn from each other on industry-sponsored projects, fostering a strong sense of community amongst students, faculty, and industry. The CSP Hatchery project is currently in the third year of its implementation, with two years remaining. Since the start of the project in Fall 2016, five required and three elective Hatchery courses have been designed and offered. Infusion of ethics and morality and vertical integration is also in the process of implementation.