The CCI Center for Education Innovation

The CCI Center for Education Innovation (CEI) is established in the College of Computing and Informatics for the development and coordination of externally funded projects that incorporate strategies and new technologies for innovation in computing and informatics education. This Center builds on and extends the efforts of DITI and STARS, where DITI has a focus on increasing diversity in the students that choose computing as a career path and STARS establishes educational practices and programs that broaden the skills of computing students. CEI projects are strategic in their approaches to making positive changes in computing education that improve the quality of the learning experience and the competence of our graduates while being results-driven to increase retention and reduce average time to graduation in the College.

The Office of Education Innovation will have a Director that oversees administrative support and facilitates project development and support. The administrative support builds on the DITI organizational structure with an Associate Director, an Evaluation Researcher, a Program Coordinator and a Business Manager. Faculty representation from the Departments of computer Science, software and information Systems, and BioInformatics form the core of the Research Directors.

People
Director: Professor Mary Lou Maher
Associate Director: Karen Bean
Program Coordinator Aubrea Collins
Evaluation Researcher: Audrey Rorrer

Research Directors:
Professor Anita Raja
Professor Jamie Souvenir
Professor Heather Lipford
Professor Derek Xiaoyu Wang
Professor Zbyszek Ras
Professor Celine Latulipe
Professor David Wilson

Projects to promote a more diverse workforce in computing and informatics.:

DITI: The Diversity in Information Technology Institute is an organized effort to increase the size and diversity of the Information Technology workforce to meet the growing demand for IT professionals across a wide range of disciplines. The Institute brings together IT and Education researchers, K-12 educators, and industry and community leaders to deploy DITI initiatives. People: Teresa Dahlberg, Jamie Payton, Karen Bean, Audrey Rorrer

STARS: The STARS Computing Corps is funded by an NSF grant and has generated a non-profit organization dedicated to building and preparing a larger, more diverse national computing workforce for the 21st Century. This project provides support and implements programs designed to attract and retain the brightest minds in the technology, computing and informatics disciplines. People: Teresa Dahlberg, Jamie Payton, Karen Bean, Audrey Rorrer

Socially Relevant Research Experience for Undergraduates: Socially Relevant Computing Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded research program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. With the objective of broadening the participation in computing doctoral programs, the targeted student participants are women and minority students from minority, women’s, and non-doctoral institutions. People: Jamie Payton

PhD Fellowships in CCI: The general goal of this CCI GAANN Fellowship project is to increase the number of qualified researchers and teachers in computing. Our target population is highly qualified students who meet the criteria for entry into our PhD program, with an emphasis on students from underrepresented populations. This project is funded by NSF and as per the National Science Foundation (NSF), for computing disciplines this includes women, persons with disabilities, and African American, Hispanic, American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander minorities. GAANN Fellows will receive a scholarship to pay their tuition and fees, and a stipend. People: Anita Raja, Zbyszek Ras, Teresa Dahlberg

Building BRIDGES Within the Undergraduate Major in Computer Science: The objective of this project is to transform the student experience in computing education through a software infrastructure termed BRIDGES. BRIDGES (Bridging Real-world Infrastructure Designed to Goal-align, Engage, and Stimulate) will provide easy-to-use interfaces to real-world, Internet-based information systems that are exciting, engaging, and commonly used by undergraduate students, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Maps. This project is funded by the NSF TUES program. People: K.R. Subramanian, Jamie Payton, Paula Goolkasian, Michael Youngblood

Projects to promote innovation in teaching and learning:

Data-Intensive Research to Improve Teaching and Learning: Projects that incorporate various approaches to visual analytics, machine learning, and other techniques to leverage big data to improve teaching and learning. For example, we will collect data on CCI student retention, time to graduation, degree program, concentration, advising, and courses taken. Various visual analytic techniques will be used to track progress, bottlenecks, and evaluate the effect of e-advising, flipped classroom courses, and online courses. People: Audrey Rorrer, Mary Lou Maher, Xiaoyu Wang

Active learning strategies: Projects that establish guidelines and new technologies for increasing active learning in campus-based education via incorporating “flipped” classroom principles, creating and wrapping MOOCs, developing hybrid and online learning experiences, increasing peer learning and peer grading. People: Mary Lou Maher, Celine Latulipe, Bruce Long, Heather Lipford.

Real-world learning experiences: Project-based learning driven by CCI Industry Partners. Industry partners provide real computing problems for specific courses while individuals in industry act as clients for the students during the semester as they develop solutions.

Novel learning technologies: Projects that develop new approaches to learning theoretical and technical content and skills such as gamification, music, video collaboration, tactile and tangible learning materials. People: Mary Lou Maher (tangible creativity), Celine Latulipe (video collaboratory)

Integrated Learning Environment for Cyber Security of Smart Grid: This project is developing an integrated simulation environment dedicated to smart grid education programs, and is designing a suite of course modules and hands-on projects focusing on security of modern power systems. Through federating the control network simulator with the Power Grid Simulator Program, this project covers both cyber and physical systems underpinning smart grid operations. The research team is carrying out well-planned evaluation and dissemination activities to assess the effectiveness of the innovative instructional materials and promote their wide adoption. People: UNCC: Weichao Wang, Georgia State: Dr. Yi Pan and Dr. Wenzhan Song, Texas A&M: Dr. Le Xie