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The academic enhancement program: encouraging students to learn about learning as part of their computing science courses

The Academic Enhancement Program (AEP) at Simon Fraser University has been created to support student learning by integrating activities that introduce students to basic learning theory and strategies into core first-year Computing Science (CS) courses. Program activities include two required workshops run specifically for the CS courses, tailored to course topics. The AEP also includes a third "Elective" component that encourages students to learn about a topic of their choice related to student success and wellness. Students receive course marks for these activities. In this paper we describe how we have developed the program over the past three years and present results about the perceived usefulness of these activities both from student survey responses and from interviews with academic advisors. We also discuss lessons learned. Our findings indicate that such practices are of general benefit to our student population and are promising to address students' academic challenges, possibly having a positive impact on retention.