Encouraging Creativity In Introductory Computer Science Programming Assignments

With computer science enrollments declining and the perception that programming is boring, computer science and computer engineering educators are challenged to raise awareness of the discipline. In order to keep students' interest and to provide a means of ownership, creative and open-ended programming assignments are used in an introductory Java course. At the end of the semester, students completed a survey about the programming assignments in the course. Survey results indicate that 64% of students shared at least one program they created with a friend or family member, indicating that students took ownership of their computer programs. Comments that the assignments were "fun", "creative", "could be run later" suggest that students took ownership of their programs. Also, 45% of students added optional features to at least one program over the course of the semester. This paper describes the homework assignments used in the course, examples of students' work, and students' perceptions of the assignments.