Addressing challenges students face in first-year university Computing Science and Engineering Science courses: Overview of a needs assessment and workshop

In this paper we describe a needs assessment that we completed to explore challenges that students face in first-year university Computing Science (CS) and Engineering Science (ES) courses, in order to develop new components for the Academic Enhancement Program (AEP), at Simon Fraser University (SFU). The AEP is a program supporting student learning by integrating activities that introduce students to basic learning theory and strategies into core first-year CS, and more recently ES courses. For our needs assessment, we interviewed instructors and surveyed first year students in both disciplines. Here we summarize initial findings from the needs assessment and a workshop we have developed and are currently piloting, to address these needs.