Engaging non-majors in computer literacy courses

Institutes of higher education are feeling more and more pressure to cut costs whenever possible. Increasing section sizes and offering online versions of courses is sometimes seen as the quick fix to the problem, a situation particularly evident in many core courses populated by a wide array of students who are not majoring in that specific field. How can instructors of these courses create an environment that engages and draws these large groups of non-majors into learning and understanding the core knowledge and skills presented in the class? The authors of this paper present a redesign of, and initial findings from, a reworked introductory computer science class that seeks to address this question through the use of active, communication focused, and student-centric techniques, materials, and technologies.