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Despite increasing enrollments in CS in recent years, retention of CS majors to meet current and future workforce needs remains a major concern. Grounding Computer Science concepts by solving important real-world problems or fun problems can be keys to increasing students’ motivation and engagement in computing, and may provide a path to improving retention in CS programs. This tutorial provides instructors with a hands-on introduction to BRIDGES, a software infrastructure for programming assignments in early computer science courses, including introductory programming (CS1, CS2), data structures, and algorithm analysis. BRIDGES provides capabilities for creating engaging programming assignments, including: (1) a simplified API for accessing real-world data sets}, including social networks; scientific, government, and civic organization data; and movie, music, and literature collections; (2) interesting visualizations of the data, (3) an easy to use API that supports creation of games, and, (4) algorithm benchmarking. Workshop attendees will engage in hands-on experience with BRIDGES and will have the opportunity to discuss how BRIDGES can be used in their own courses. 

The rise in CS enrollments in the past few years has also resulted in a more diverse population of learners that have different expectations, motivations and interests, making it important to provide relevant learning materials in early foundational courses. Grounding Computer Science concepts in reality by solving important real-world or fun problems are keys to increasing students’ motivation and engagement in computing, which may help improve student retention and success. This workshop provides instructors with a hands-on introduction to BRIDGES, a software infrastructure for programming assignments in early computer science courses, such as CS1, CS2, data structures, and algorithm analysis. BRIDGES provides the tools for creating engaging programming assignments, including: (1) a simplified API for accessing real-world data, such as those from social networks, entertainment (songs, movies), science, engineering (USGIS Earthquakes, elevation maps), geography (OpenStreet maps), and literature (Project Gutenberg), (2) creating visualizations of the data, (3) an easy to use API for game-based assignments, and, (4) algorithm benchmarking. Workshop attendees will engage in hands-on experience using BRIDGES with multiple datasets, have the opportunity to discuss the challenges they face in their own courses, and how BRIDGES can be used in their own courses. Using BRIDGES in data structures, algorithms, and other courses have shown improved retention of CS knowledge and better student performance in follow-on courses, when compared to students from other sections of the same course. BRIDGES has impacted nearly 2000 students across 20 institutions since its inception 5 years ago. A repository of BRIDGES assignments is now maintained for instructors using BRIDGES in their classes.