It is well known that students learn and retain more when they are engaged with the subject at hand. This is true for all manner of different student learning styles. There are many approaches to increase students' engagement in the classroom, and educators in computer science can easily take advantage of them as most students have several computing devices on hand at all times. This talk will cover a few of these approaches that I have incorporated into my undergraduate courses. In particular, it is important to provide students with the opportunity to test out new skills, and reflect on the material, as often as possible during course meetings. This can be as simple as giving a few moments to think about a particular question, to working on 5-10 minute exercises, to fully integrating traditional lecture and lab components. An example mini-lecture will be included in the talk to demonstrate some of these ideas. Structuring entire courses around these principles can be difficult, but if done correctly then students are more likely to remain engaged and hence to succeed in the course.

Dr. Charlie Wiseman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Networking at Wentworth Institute of Technology. His primary interests are in systems and networking including system architecture, network design, and administration. He is currently focused on how best to bring these subjects into an undergraduate computing curriculum. He was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2013. He earned his Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis in 2010 where he conducted research into virtual networking environments and testbeds.