Enhancing Cybersecurity Education Using POGIL

This poster presents our NSF collaborative project “Enhancing Cybersecurity Education Using POGIL”. Although the POGIL (Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning) instructional approach has been used and evaluated in science and engineering disciplines, the use of POGIL in cybersecurity education is not in place due to the lack of POGIL materials in cybersecurity. To deliver key learning outcomes as well as “soft skills” in cybersecurity students, we are developing POGIL materials for teaching cybersecurity, implementing the POGIL teaching pedagogy in cybersecurity courses, and evaluating the teaching and learning effectiveness of the developed POGIL materials and teaching method. We are developing POGIL materials for fifteen topics in six areas: cryptography, access control, network security, risk management, web security, and secure coding. These POGIL materials will be implemented and evaluated in eight different courses at three universities. Through assessing the developed POGIL materials and teaching method, we seek to answer the following research question: Is using the POGIL method more effective than the traditional/lecture-based teaching method in terms of learning outcomes, learning experience, attitudes and motivation? The developed POGIL materials will contribute to the effective resources for cybersecurity education, and enhance cybersecurity education by developing student key skills as well as improving student attitudes, motivation and enjoyment in learning.