Engaging in Computer Science

The results, implications, and limitations are discussed in this section in relation to the three main research questions. The authors highlight connections to current literature and propose future research questions. A list of suggestions are also provided for those creating student outreach opportunities.

Research Question Discussion

Related work in this field demonstrated a need for outreach programs and open-source activities in response to growing demands for computer science and cybersecurity professionals. Outreach programs can increase interest in these fields and motivate students to become not only good programmers, but good computer scientists. This central issue guided the first research question: How does a week-long outreach program impact student interest in cybersecurity? The responses from the 10 question interest survey revealed that the number of students who reported being highly interested in cybersecurity more than doubled between the start and end of the camp. This indicates that week-long outreach programs can greatly increase interest in cybersecurity. In addition, all of the students who indicated that they were only minimally interested in cybersecurity at the start of the camps reported being more interested by the end of the camp. This demonstrated that the camps did not just make the already-interested students more interested, but also increased interest across the group regardless of their ability level.

Recalling that educators should aim to teach more than just programming to their students when teaching computer science, they should teach their students through real-world problems that apply to their everyday lives. This idea guided the investigation into the second research question: How do summer outreach activities influence student awareness of their security and privacy practices? One survey question asked the students about online memes that can compromise the privacy of unsuspecting users. While most of the students did not realize the security implications of some of their actions online before the camp, 18 of the 24 students recognized the given situation as a potential breach of their confidentiality. This indicated that the camp activities focused on teaching students to be mindful of their online actions were successful. This result also shows that outreach activities can influence how students think about their regular behavior, conditioning them to be cognizant of the information they share.

Lastly, it is well known that outreach programs should provide hands-on, student-centered activities. Students responded positively to the hands-on activities and laboratory projects created for this outreach program. This gave students the opportunity to discover cybersecurity lessons through exercises led by university camp staff as well as industry professionals. This engagement enabled the team to address the third research question: How do hands-on activities and student-centered labs impact content knowledge in voluntary summer camps? Data from the first four questions in the survey confirm that students were able to recall important security information as well as apply basic security concepts to the real-world. When asked about the CIA concepts after the camps, 23 of 24 students were able to recall what the acronym stood for, 20 were able to identify a breach of confidentiality, 15 were able to identify a breach in integrity, and 22 were able to identify a breach in availability. This indicates that the hands-on activities and student-centered labs were successful in teaching the students basic security concepts and, by extension, that hands-on activities and student-centered labs had a positive impact on information retention in the voluntary summer camps.

Implications

Educators and those creating outreach experiences for students can glean insight from the authors' lessons learned during the three, week-long summer camps. Recall that related work in the field also showed that educators are currently struggling to find helpful resources for teaching computer science and cybersecurity. The camp staff focused on creating quality activities that used computer science problem solving and programming to solve real-world problems. To support the growth of usable activities, each of the Micro:Bit activities was made available to educators along with the "level-up guides" at http://www.wycyberstars.com. This supports educators and parents looking to provide students with cybersecurity lessons. Each of the activities has flexible time constraints to fit both short classes as well as longer classes. In addition, since the outreach program welcomed students across a wide age range, the activities were built to suit students with varying backgrounds. The authors created level-up guides with activities (or milestones) that "grow incrementally" from step to step. The authors believe that while novice/intermediate students learned more by going through the first one or two level-up stages, the intermediate/advanced students were able to expand their learning and make meaningful connections throughout the levels while sometimes engaging in extensions beyond the level-up guide.

Other related works stressed the importance of student motivation and strong leadership from outreach staff. The camps focused on motivating and engaging students through the badge leveling system. In addition, the camp staff expressed genuine excitement for students when their solutions worked and supported the students when their solutions did not work as students learned through failure. The camp staff shared their experiences in computer science and cybersecurity with the students, modeling that professions in STEM fields are attainable. These mentors came from many different backgrounds including educational professionals, computer science and cybersecurity educators, professors with industry experience, and collegiate camp staff. By providing a variety of models (e.g., female doctoral student, Hispanic female masters student, African-American male undergraduates student, female high school student), students were able to benefit from the mentors in a variety of ways.

Related work also shows that outreach programs can promote the growth of soft skills such as teamwork and communication. In these outreach camps, students were encouraged to communicate their thoughts and ideas to each other as they worked together in groups to create solutions to open problems. The intermediate/advanced students were often paired up with novice/intermediate students and given the opportunity to lead and mentor them. This created a chain of support for the students. The intermediate/advanced student participants supported the novice/intermediate student participants, while the high school, undergraduate, and graduate students supported all of the student participants while the camp leaders supported the whole team. This promoted leadership across the entire group as well as cooperation and teamwork.

Additional related works were concerned with the sensibility and effectiveness of outreach activities. Constantly improving lessons and upgrading laboratory activities helped maintain the camps, keeping them up-to-date with current cybersecurity issues facing the field. The lessons were based on these real-world issues and camp staff explicitly tied the lab back to these applications.

Related works were also concerned about the accessibility of outreach programs. The low cost of the lab materials supported the maintainability of these outreach activities as well as encouraged the use of the materials by educators looking for cost-effective ways to include computer science and cybersecurity in their classrooms. Furthermore, these camps were held in numerous rural locations to provide outreach opportunities to a wide range of students.

Lastly, these camps aimed to align with other related works which highlighted the need to be flexible for a diverse set of students. The camps focused on creating lessons that could be taught in multiple ways, making it more efficient for camp staff to pivot when students lost focus or needed assistance in approaching the problem in a different way. In addition, because the 2019 camps provided space for smaller groups of students, camp staff were able to better tailor lessons and methods to students learning needs. The considerations made in the pursuit of providing an effective week-long summer outreach program were successful. This is demonstrated through field notes showing high student engagement and in the high ratings the students gave the camp during their post-camp survey (15 students giving the camps a "five" out of five rating and another six giving a "four" out of five rating).

Limitations

Despite the improvements made to the outreach experience labs, they were limited by the amount of time students had to work on some projects. To provide a relative structure to the day, regular breaks were built in to accommodate the students' attention spans. Some of the breaks came at inopportune times throughout the day and disrupted a project's flow. Some activities held student attention much longer than anticipated, forcing hard decisions about how to structure the rest of the day to provide enough time for each activity. This also inhibited deeper dives into subjects with some students becoming restless (and some students becoming more engaged). In addition, these camps may not be indicative of outreach opportunities and are thus not generalizable, and the scope of the results is limited to week-long, free, voluntary, student summer camps. Many of the decisions made during these particular outreach camps influenced the results since the camp was only a week long. Furthermore, these results only give overall perceptions of the students' content knowledge, interest level, and cybersecurity awareness. While these perceptions give an impression of how the outreach activities influenced the students, they do not prove that specific activities or outreach decisions were responsible for the discussed findings