This experience report describes a book club model for an undergraduate-level Big Data Analytics course. Course learning outcomes included communicating ethical implications of data and models and working collaboratively with other students in crafting solutions by listening and demonstrating. Students read Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil, individually answered reading questions, and collaborated during activities in three class meetings. Students’ participation and activity completion rates exceeded 90%, indicating they engaged with the book club model. To understand the students’ experiences with the activities, submissions and a survey were collected and analyzed. The book club activities expanded students’ understanding of bias in data and models, the potential misuse and harm when using and creating software, and how users can be targeted with models and data. In addition to providing a set of activities for a specific book, this paper can serve as a template for using the book club model in any computing course.

Dr. Tammy VanDeGrift is a Professor of computer science in the Shiley School of Engineering at the University of Portland (Oregon, USA). She enjoys teaching and studying how people learn engineering and computer science.