Lara Letaw, Rosalinda Garcia, Heather Garcia, Christopher Perdriau, M. Burnett
Motivation: Although CS Education researchers and practitioners have found ways to improve CS classroom inclusivity, few researchers have considered inclusivity of online CS education. We are interested in two such improvements in online CS education—besides being inclusive to each other, online CS students also need to be able to create inclusive technology. Objectives: We have begun developing a new approach that we term “embedded inclusive design” to address both of these goals. The essence of the approach is to integrate elements of inclusive design education into mainstream CS coursework. This paper presents three curricular interventions we have developed in this approach and empirically investigates their efficacy in online CS post-baccalaureate education. Our research questions were: How do these three curricular interventions affect (RQ1) the climate among online CS students and (RQ2) how online CS students honor the diversity of their users in the tech they create? Method: To answer these research questions, we implemented the curricular interventions in four asynchronous online CS classes across two CS courses within Oregon State University’s Ecampus and conducted an action research study to investigate the impacts. Results: Online CS students who experienced these interventions reported feeling more included in the major than they had before, reported positive impacts on their team dynamics, increased their interest in accommodating diverse users, and created more inclusive technology designs than they had before. Discussion: These results provide encouraging evidence that embedding elements of inclusive design into mainstream CS coursework, via the interventions presented here, can increase both online CS students’ inclusivity toward one another and the inclusivity of the technology these future CS practitioners create.
{"title":"Changing the Online Climate via the Online Students: Effects of Three Curricular Interventions on Online CS Students’ Inclusivity","authors":"Lara Letaw, Rosalinda Garcia, Heather Garcia, Christopher Perdriau, M. Burnett","doi":"10.1145/3446871.3469742","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3446871.3469742","url":null,"abstract":"Motivation: Although CS Education researchers and practitioners have found ways to improve CS classroom inclusivity, few researchers have considered inclusivity of online CS education. We are interested in two such improvements in online CS education—besides being inclusive to each other, online CS students also need to be able to create inclusive technology. Objectives: We have begun developing a new approach that we term “embedded inclusive design” to address both of these goals. The essence of the approach is to integrate elements of inclusive design education into mainstream CS coursework. This paper presents three curricular interventions we have developed in this approach and empirically investigates their efficacy in online CS post-baccalaureate education. Our research questions were: How do these three curricular interventions affect (RQ1) the climate among online CS students and (RQ2) how online CS students honor the diversity of their users in the tech they create? Method: To answer these research questions, we implemented the curricular interventions in four asynchronous online CS classes across two CS courses within Oregon State University’s Ecampus and conducted an action research study to investigate the impacts. Results: Online CS students who experienced these interventions reported feeling more included in the major than they had before, reported positive impacts on their team dynamics, increased their interest in accommodating diverse users, and created more inclusive technology designs than they had before. Discussion: These results provide encouraging evidence that embedding elements of inclusive design into mainstream CS coursework, via the interventions presented here, can increase both online CS students’ inclusivity toward one another and the inclusivity of the technology these future CS practitioners create.","PeriodicalId":309835,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125980811","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mathematician Eugenia Cheng offers a fresh framework for thinking about the problem of the under-representation of women in STEM. Cheng’s approach is grounded in her research field, category theory, which leads to her proposal that instead of focusing on a gender binary, we instead consider each person as being on a continuum from “congressive” (that is, focused on interdependence) to “ingressive” (focused on independence). The purpose of this poster is to consider the application of Cheng’s framework to computing education by focusing on three main questions: If we base computing education research on this framework, what might that look like? What might we gain, and what might we lose? Cheng’s framework applied to computing education research would change the methodology used in interventions that consider the participants’ gender. Gains from Cheng’s framework therefore include a way to research, analyze, and implement interventions in computer science education to improve representation that do not reify the gender binary and (further) marginalize non-cis-gendered students. However, adopting Cheng’s framework would create several hurdles, including the need for a valid instrument to assess placement on the continuum. And the framework may well fail to rectify the problem of under-representation. Nonetheless, Cheng’s framework, particularly in its ability to include all students, regardless of gender identity, is worth considering as a tool in computing education, not the least because it suggests a possible contrast to the status quo.
{"title":"Beyond the Gender Binary in Computing Education Research","authors":"Julie M. Smith","doi":"10.1145/3446871.3469794","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3446871.3469794","url":null,"abstract":"Mathematician Eugenia Cheng offers a fresh framework for thinking about the problem of the under-representation of women in STEM. Cheng’s approach is grounded in her research field, category theory, which leads to her proposal that instead of focusing on a gender binary, we instead consider each person as being on a continuum from “congressive” (that is, focused on interdependence) to “ingressive” (focused on independence). The purpose of this poster is to consider the application of Cheng’s framework to computing education by focusing on three main questions: If we base computing education research on this framework, what might that look like? What might we gain, and what might we lose? Cheng’s framework applied to computing education research would change the methodology used in interventions that consider the participants’ gender. Gains from Cheng’s framework therefore include a way to research, analyze, and implement interventions in computer science education to improve representation that do not reify the gender binary and (further) marginalize non-cis-gendered students. However, adopting Cheng’s framework would create several hurdles, including the need for a valid instrument to assess placement on the continuum. And the framework may well fail to rectify the problem of under-representation. Nonetheless, Cheng’s framework, particularly in its ability to include all students, regardless of gender identity, is worth considering as a tool in computing education, not the least because it suggests a possible contrast to the status quo.","PeriodicalId":309835,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research","volume":"175 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128904659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Motivation. Higher-order functions are a standard and increasingly central component in many kinds of modern programming, including data science and Web development. Yet little research has been devoted to student learning or understanding of this topic. Objectives. We conducted formative research on how well students are able to correlate higher-order functions with their input–output behavior. We also wanted to evaluate a variety of techniques for assessing their understanding. Method. We created a series of instruments in which students were given either concrete input/output examples or abstracted diagrams of list transformations. Students were asked to cluster or classify these examples by their behavior, sometimes against a concrete list of higher-order functions and sometimes free-form. We administered these over the course of a month, and then once again three months later. Results. We find that students initially have several difficulties with clustering higher-order function examples. With different instruments, we find that students are later able to do quite well, largely avoiding large-scale errors but making several small-scale ones. We also find some evidence of growth in their thinking about these operations. We also find weaknesses in the nature and order of techniques we used. Discussion. Higher-order functions deserve far more attention than they have been paid in the literature on programming education. Their increasing use in several important domains makes this need critical. Our proposed methods for conducting such research are another contribution of this work. Our findings and methods should also be relevant for exploring how students understand libraries and APIs.
{"title":"Developing Behavioral Concepts of Higher-Order Functions","authors":"S. Krishnamurthi, Kathi Fisler","doi":"10.1145/3446871.3469739","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3446871.3469739","url":null,"abstract":"Motivation. Higher-order functions are a standard and increasingly central component in many kinds of modern programming, including data science and Web development. Yet little research has been devoted to student learning or understanding of this topic. Objectives. We conducted formative research on how well students are able to correlate higher-order functions with their input–output behavior. We also wanted to evaluate a variety of techniques for assessing their understanding. Method. We created a series of instruments in which students were given either concrete input/output examples or abstracted diagrams of list transformations. Students were asked to cluster or classify these examples by their behavior, sometimes against a concrete list of higher-order functions and sometimes free-form. We administered these over the course of a month, and then once again three months later. Results. We find that students initially have several difficulties with clustering higher-order function examples. With different instruments, we find that students are later able to do quite well, largely avoiding large-scale errors but making several small-scale ones. We also find some evidence of growth in their thinking about these operations. We also find weaknesses in the nature and order of techniques we used. Discussion. Higher-order functions deserve far more attention than they have been paid in the literature on programming education. Their increasing use in several important domains makes this need critical. Our proposed methods for conducting such research are another contribution of this work. Our findings and methods should also be relevant for exploring how students understand libraries and APIs.","PeriodicalId":309835,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116948247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There are significant participation gaps in computing, and the way to address these participation gaps lies not simply in getting students from underrepresented groups into a CS1 classroom, but supporting students to pursue their interest in computing further beyond CS1. There are many factors that may influence students’ pursuit of computing beyond introductory courses, including their sense that they can do what CS courses require of them (their self-efficacy) and positive emotional experiences in CS courses. When interest has been addressed in computing education, research has treated it mostly as an outcome of particular pedagogical approaches or curricula; what has not been studied is how students’ longer-term interest develops through more granular experiences that students have as they begin to engage with computing. In this paper, we present the results of a study designed to investigate how students’ interest in computing develops as a product of their momentary self-efficacy and affective experiences. Using a methodology that is relatively uncommon to computer science education—the experience sampling method, which involves frequently asking students brief, unobtrusive questions about their experiences—we surveyed CS1 students every week over the course of a semester to capture the nuances of their experiences. 74 CS1 students responded 14-18 times over the course of a semester about their self-efficacy, frustration, and situational interest. With this data, we used a multivariate, multi-level statistical model that allowed us to estimate how students’ granular, momentary experiences (measured through the experience sampling method surveys) and initial interest, self-efficacy, and self-reported gender (measured through traditional surveys) relate to their longer-term interest and achievement in the course. We found that students’ momentary experiences have a significant impact on their interest in computing and course outcomes, even controlling for the self-efficacy and interest students reported at the beginning of the semester. We also found significant gender differences in students’ momentary experiences, however, these were reduced substantially when students’ self-efficacy was added to the model, suggesting that gender gaps could instead be self-efficacy gaps. These results suggest that students’ momentary experiences in CS1, how they experience the course week to week, have an impact on their longer-term interest and learning outcomes. Furthermore, we found that male and female students reported different experiences, suggesting that improving the CS1 experiences that students have could help to close gender-related participation gaps. In all, this study shows that the granular experiences students have in CS1 matter for key outcomes of interest to computing education researchers and educators and that the experience sampling method, more common in fields adjacent to computer science education, provides one way for researchers to
{"title":"All the Pieces Matter: The Relationship of Momentary Self-efficacy and Affective Experiences with CS1 Achievement and Interest in Computing","authors":"A. Lishinski, Joshua Rosenberg","doi":"10.1145/3446871.3469740","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3446871.3469740","url":null,"abstract":"There are significant participation gaps in computing, and the way to address these participation gaps lies not simply in getting students from underrepresented groups into a CS1 classroom, but supporting students to pursue their interest in computing further beyond CS1. There are many factors that may influence students’ pursuit of computing beyond introductory courses, including their sense that they can do what CS courses require of them (their self-efficacy) and positive emotional experiences in CS courses. When interest has been addressed in computing education, research has treated it mostly as an outcome of particular pedagogical approaches or curricula; what has not been studied is how students’ longer-term interest develops through more granular experiences that students have as they begin to engage with computing. In this paper, we present the results of a study designed to investigate how students’ interest in computing develops as a product of their momentary self-efficacy and affective experiences. Using a methodology that is relatively uncommon to computer science education—the experience sampling method, which involves frequently asking students brief, unobtrusive questions about their experiences—we surveyed CS1 students every week over the course of a semester to capture the nuances of their experiences. 74 CS1 students responded 14-18 times over the course of a semester about their self-efficacy, frustration, and situational interest. With this data, we used a multivariate, multi-level statistical model that allowed us to estimate how students’ granular, momentary experiences (measured through the experience sampling method surveys) and initial interest, self-efficacy, and self-reported gender (measured through traditional surveys) relate to their longer-term interest and achievement in the course. We found that students’ momentary experiences have a significant impact on their interest in computing and course outcomes, even controlling for the self-efficacy and interest students reported at the beginning of the semester. We also found significant gender differences in students’ momentary experiences, however, these were reduced substantially when students’ self-efficacy was added to the model, suggesting that gender gaps could instead be self-efficacy gaps. These results suggest that students’ momentary experiences in CS1, how they experience the course week to week, have an impact on their longer-term interest and learning outcomes. Furthermore, we found that male and female students reported different experiences, suggesting that improving the CS1 experiences that students have could help to close gender-related participation gaps. In all, this study shows that the granular experiences students have in CS1 matter for key outcomes of interest to computing education researchers and educators and that the experience sampling method, more common in fields adjacent to computer science education, provides one way for researchers to","PeriodicalId":309835,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research","volume":"160 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134270062","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Melissa Høegh Marcher, I. Christensen, P. Grabarczyk, T. Graversen, Claus Brabrand
Prior research on recruitment of women to computing has established that computing tasks involving People rather than Things have been perceived as much more appealing by female high-school students (potentially recruitable as university computing students). This paper changes the focus from prospective to current university students and presents the results of a new experiment that advances and moves beyond earlier research in two crucial respects. First of all, the participants of the experiment are N=152 university students, who already study computing, rather than general high-school students. Second of all, the choice between a People-themed versus an isomorphic Things-themed version of an educational task now pertains to real (in fact, mandatory) assignments that the students had to perform, rather than hypothetical tasks. The change of experimental context, design, and methodology allows us to complement previous findings related to recruitment with suggestions significant for computing educational activities. The overall findings of the new experiment are consistent with that of the previous one. We find that, also at university, there is a visible preference for choosing People themed over Things themed computing tasks amongst women. The results also expose considerable variation between tasks in the effect of gender observed. At the same time, male students, in general, seem to be either indifferent to the themes or to slightly prefer People versions. This suggests that educators should consider favoring People themed assignments over ones involving Things.
{"title":"Computing Educational Activities Involving People Rather Than Things Appeal More to Women (CS1 Appeal Perspective)","authors":"Melissa Høegh Marcher, I. Christensen, P. Grabarczyk, T. Graversen, Claus Brabrand","doi":"10.1145/3446871.3469761","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3446871.3469761","url":null,"abstract":"Prior research on recruitment of women to computing has established that computing tasks involving People rather than Things have been perceived as much more appealing by female high-school students (potentially recruitable as university computing students). This paper changes the focus from prospective to current university students and presents the results of a new experiment that advances and moves beyond earlier research in two crucial respects. First of all, the participants of the experiment are N=152 university students, who already study computing, rather than general high-school students. Second of all, the choice between a People-themed versus an isomorphic Things-themed version of an educational task now pertains to real (in fact, mandatory) assignments that the students had to perform, rather than hypothetical tasks. The change of experimental context, design, and methodology allows us to complement previous findings related to recruitment with suggestions significant for computing educational activities. The overall findings of the new experiment are consistent with that of the previous one. We find that, also at university, there is a visible preference for choosing People themed over Things themed computing tasks amongst women. The results also expose considerable variation between tasks in the effect of gender observed. At the same time, male students, in general, seem to be either indifferent to the themes or to slightly prefer People versions. This suggests that educators should consider favoring People themed assignments over ones involving Things.","PeriodicalId":309835,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117082823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Validated instruments of knowledge are important for creating an accepted and shared measurement for the most important part of education – student learning. The Force Concept of Inventory from Physics Education Research has had a significant impact across STEM education. The Foundational CS1 (FCS1) and Second CS1 (SCS1) assessments were created and validated to further computing education research. Now, ten years after the publication of the FCS1 assessment and five years after the release of the SCS1 assessment, we can trace the use and the impact that these validated instruments have had on the needs and knowledge of the computing education community. In this paper, we examine how the FCS1 and SCS1 assessments have been used and adapted. We use this discussion to guide a comparison between our field and physics education to give a sense of direction to future research. In looking back on the use of these validated instruments, we can better understand our needs in computing education research and about our future needs in assessment.
{"title":"Uses, Revisions, and the Future of Validated Assessments in Computing Education: A Case Study of the FCS1 and SCS1","authors":"M. Parker, M. Guzdial, Allison Elliott Tew","doi":"10.1145/3446871.3469744","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3446871.3469744","url":null,"abstract":"Validated instruments of knowledge are important for creating an accepted and shared measurement for the most important part of education – student learning. The Force Concept of Inventory from Physics Education Research has had a significant impact across STEM education. The Foundational CS1 (FCS1) and Second CS1 (SCS1) assessments were created and validated to further computing education research. Now, ten years after the publication of the FCS1 assessment and five years after the release of the SCS1 assessment, we can trace the use and the impact that these validated instruments have had on the needs and knowledge of the computing education community. In this paper, we examine how the FCS1 and SCS1 assessments have been used and adapted. We use this discussion to guide a comparison between our field and physics education to give a sense of direction to future research. In looking back on the use of these validated instruments, we can better understand our needs in computing education research and about our future needs in assessment.","PeriodicalId":309835,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research","volume":"197 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116185757","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I. Christensen, Melissa Høegh Marcher, P. Grabarczyk, T. Graversen, Claus Brabrand
There is a strong need for a more equal gender balance within the computing field. In 1998, Richard A. Lippa [29] uncovered a relationship between gender and preference within the People–Things spectrum, with women preferring People-oriented activities to a higher degree than men. The aim of this paper is twofold. First of all, we wish to determine if a similar relation can be established in the particular context of computing educational activities. Second of all, we wish to see if Lippa’s findings can be extrapolated to contemporary high-school students. To do that, we designed and conducted an experiment involving around 500 Danish high-school students who have been asked to choose between a People-themed version vs an isomorphic Things-themed version of four activities representative for computing education. The results show that the odds of a woman preferring a task involving People is 2.7 times higher than those of a man. The odds of a student without prior programming experience preferring a task involving People is 1.4 times higher than those of a student with programming experience. If we compare women without programming experience to men with programming experience the effect is even more pronounced; indeed, the combined effect is 3.8 (2.7 × 1.4). Our study implies a recommendation for computing educators to, whenever possible, favor educational activities involving People over Things. This makes educational activities appeal more to female students (and to students without programming experience), while not making a difference for male students (or students with programming experience). Since the experiment measured only the appeal of tasks (the users were not expected to perform them) the results we obtained can be useful for recruitment processes where the overall image and appeal of material makes a difference.
在计算机领域，迫切需要更加平等的性别平衡。1998年，Richard a . Lippa[29]在人-物光谱中发现了性别和偏好之间的关系，女性比男性更喜欢以人为本的活动。本文的目的是双重的。首先，我们希望确定在计算机教育活动的特定背景下是否可以建立类似的关系。其次，我们希望看看利帕的发现是否可以外推到当代高中生身上。为了做到这一点，我们设计并进行了一项实验，涉及大约500名丹麦高中生，他们被要求在四种具有代表性的计算教育活动中选择以人为主题的版本和以同构的事物为主题的版本。结果显示，女性更喜欢与人有关的任务的几率是男性的2.7倍。没有编程经验的学生更喜欢涉及人的任务的几率是有编程经验的学生的1.4倍。如果我们将没有编程经验的女性与有编程经验的男性进行比较，效果会更加明显;事实上，综合效应是3.8 (2.7 × 1.4)。我们的研究建议计算机教育工作者，只要有可能，就支持涉及人而不是物的教育活动。这使得教育活动对女学生(和没有编程经验的学生)更有吸引力，而对男学生(或有编程经验的学生)没有影响。由于实验只测量了任务的吸引力(用户不期望执行它们)，我们获得的结果对于招聘过程是有用的，在招聘过程中，材料的整体形象和吸引力会产生影响。
{"title":"Computing Educational Activities Involving People Rather Than Things Appeal More to Women (Recruitment Perspective)","authors":"I. Christensen, Melissa Høegh Marcher, P. Grabarczyk, T. Graversen, Claus Brabrand","doi":"10.1145/3446871.3469758","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3446871.3469758","url":null,"abstract":"There is a strong need for a more equal gender balance within the computing field. In 1998, Richard A. Lippa [29] uncovered a relationship between gender and preference within the People–Things spectrum, with women preferring People-oriented activities to a higher degree than men. The aim of this paper is twofold. First of all, we wish to determine if a similar relation can be established in the particular context of computing educational activities. Second of all, we wish to see if Lippa’s findings can be extrapolated to contemporary high-school students. To do that, we designed and conducted an experiment involving around 500 Danish high-school students who have been asked to choose between a People-themed version vs an isomorphic Things-themed version of four activities representative for computing education. The results show that the odds of a woman preferring a task involving People is 2.7 times higher than those of a man. The odds of a student without prior programming experience preferring a task involving People is 1.4 times higher than those of a student with programming experience. If we compare women without programming experience to men with programming experience the effect is even more pronounced; indeed, the combined effect is 3.8 (2.7 × 1.4). Our study implies a recommendation for computing educators to, whenever possible, favor educational activities involving People over Things. This makes educational activities appeal more to female students (and to students without programming experience), while not making a difference for male students (or students with programming experience). Since the experiment measured only the appeal of tasks (the users were not expected to perform them) the results we obtained can be useful for recruitment processes where the overall image and appeal of material makes a difference.","PeriodicalId":309835,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115637069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
To meet the rising demand for computer science (CS) courses, K-12 educators need to be prepared to teach introductory concepts and skills in courses such as Computer Science Principles (CSP), which takes a breadth-first approach to CS and includes topics beyond programming such as data, impacts of computing, and networks. Educators are now also being asked to teach more advanced concepts in courses such as the College Board's Advanced Placement Computer Science A (CSA) course, which focuses on advanced programming using Java and includes topics such as objects, inheritance, arrays, and recursion. Traditional CSA curricula have not used content or pedagogy designed to engage a broad range of learners and support their success. Unlike CSP, which is attracting more underrepresented students to computing as it was designed, CSA continues to enroll mostly male, white, and Asian students [College Board 2019, Ericson 2020, Sax 2020]. In order to expand CS education opportunities, it is crucial that students have an engaging experience in CSA similar to CSP. Well-designed differentiated professional development (PD) that focuses on content and pedagogy is necessary to meet individual teacher needs, to successfully build teacher skills and confidence to teach CSA, and to improve engagement with students [Darling-Hammond 2017]. It is critical that as more CS opportunities and courses are developed, teachers remain engaged with their own learning in order to build their content knowledge and refine their teaching practice [CSTA 2020]. CSAwesome, developed and piloted in 2019, offers a College Board endorsed AP CSA curriculum and PD focused on supporting the transition of teachers and students from CSP to CSA. This poster presents preliminary findings aimed at exploring the supports and challenges new-to-CSA high school level educators face when transitioning from teaching an introductory, breadth-first course such as CSP to teaching the more challenging, programming-focused CSA course. Five teachers who completed the online CSAwesome summer 2020 PD completed interviews in spring 2021. The project employed an inductive coding scheme to analyze interview transcriptions and qualitative notes from teachers about their experiences learning, teaching, and implementing CSP and CSA curricula. Initial findings suggest that teachers’ experience in the CSAwesome PD may improve their confidence in teaching CSA, ability to effectively use inclusive teaching practices, ability to empathize with their students, problem-solving skills, and motivation to persist when faced with challenges and difficulties. Teachers noted how the CSAwesome PD provided them with a student perspective and increased feelings of empathy. Participants spoke about the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on their own learning, student learning, and teaching style. Teachers enter the PD with many different backgrounds, CS experience levels, and strengths, however, new-to-CSA teachers require furth
{"title":"Developing Empathy and Persistence through Professional Development in New to CSA Teachers","authors":"Cassandra Broneak, J. Rosato","doi":"10.1145/3446871.3469793","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3446871.3469793","url":null,"abstract":"To meet the rising demand for computer science (CS) courses, K-12 educators need to be prepared to teach introductory concepts and skills in courses such as Computer Science Principles (CSP), which takes a breadth-first approach to CS and includes topics beyond programming such as data, impacts of computing, and networks. Educators are now also being asked to teach more advanced concepts in courses such as the College Board's Advanced Placement Computer Science A (CSA) course, which focuses on advanced programming using Java and includes topics such as objects, inheritance, arrays, and recursion. Traditional CSA curricula have not used content or pedagogy designed to engage a broad range of learners and support their success. Unlike CSP, which is attracting more underrepresented students to computing as it was designed, CSA continues to enroll mostly male, white, and Asian students [College Board 2019, Ericson 2020, Sax 2020]. In order to expand CS education opportunities, it is crucial that students have an engaging experience in CSA similar to CSP. Well-designed differentiated professional development (PD) that focuses on content and pedagogy is necessary to meet individual teacher needs, to successfully build teacher skills and confidence to teach CSA, and to improve engagement with students [Darling-Hammond 2017]. It is critical that as more CS opportunities and courses are developed, teachers remain engaged with their own learning in order to build their content knowledge and refine their teaching practice [CSTA 2020]. CSAwesome, developed and piloted in 2019, offers a College Board endorsed AP CSA curriculum and PD focused on supporting the transition of teachers and students from CSP to CSA. This poster presents preliminary findings aimed at exploring the supports and challenges new-to-CSA high school level educators face when transitioning from teaching an introductory, breadth-first course such as CSP to teaching the more challenging, programming-focused CSA course. Five teachers who completed the online CSAwesome summer 2020 PD completed interviews in spring 2021. The project employed an inductive coding scheme to analyze interview transcriptions and qualitative notes from teachers about their experiences learning, teaching, and implementing CSP and CSA curricula. Initial findings suggest that teachers’ experience in the CSAwesome PD may improve their confidence in teaching CSA, ability to effectively use inclusive teaching practices, ability to empathize with their students, problem-solving skills, and motivation to persist when faced with challenges and difficulties. Teachers noted how the CSAwesome PD provided them with a student perspective and increased feelings of empathy. Participants spoke about the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on their own learning, student learning, and teaching style. Teachers enter the PD with many different backgrounds, CS experience levels, and strengths, however, new-to-CSA teachers require furth","PeriodicalId":309835,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research","volume":"71 1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115637947","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Computer programming is widely regarded as a complex learning domain with high element interactivity leading to some students experiencing low levels of success due to high cognitive load. Collaborative cognitive load theory may provide a way to optimise cognitive processing by drawing on the collective working memory in situations where task complexity is beyond the capacity of the individual’s working memory. The theory suggests that collaboration comes with cognitive overheads due to transactive activities, such as sharing ideas and developing a joint understanding of knowledge, and that transactive activities can be managed by developing collaboration skills. Given this, the efficacy of collaborative cognitive load theory relies on the effective use of sociocultural mediators such as language, tools and scaffolding but the theory does not suggest how this can be achieved. My research draws on Vygotsky’s social constructivism to provide a framework to understand these aspects. In doing so, my thesis aims to design a learning framework that describes and provides concrete guidance to computing teachers planning collaborative learning experiences that manage cognitive load and allow students to experience success in programming.
{"title":"A Pedagogical Framework for Teaching Computer Programming: A Social Constructivist and Cognitive Load Theory Approach","authors":"Nicola Looker","doi":"10.1145/3446871.3469778","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3446871.3469778","url":null,"abstract":"Computer programming is widely regarded as a complex learning domain with high element interactivity leading to some students experiencing low levels of success due to high cognitive load. Collaborative cognitive load theory may provide a way to optimise cognitive processing by drawing on the collective working memory in situations where task complexity is beyond the capacity of the individual’s working memory. The theory suggests that collaboration comes with cognitive overheads due to transactive activities, such as sharing ideas and developing a joint understanding of knowledge, and that transactive activities can be managed by developing collaboration skills. Given this, the efficacy of collaborative cognitive load theory relies on the effective use of sociocultural mediators such as language, tools and scaffolding but the theory does not suggest how this can be achieved. My research draws on Vygotsky’s social constructivism to provide a framework to understand these aspects. In doing so, my thesis aims to design a learning framework that describes and provides concrete guidance to computing teachers planning collaborative learning experiences that manage cognitive load and allow students to experience success in programming.","PeriodicalId":309835,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114896471","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Motivation. In education, classroom talk is a vital aspect of a lesson, and programming education is no exception. While the role of language and dialogue has been researched in depth in other school subjects, there has been less research in the programming context. Sociocultural theory highlights the importance of language as a mediator for learning, alongside other tools. Objectives. Drawing on sociocultural theory and models of dialogic education, the purpose of the study was to investigate the ways in which programming teachers use classroom talk to support learning, and to propose a model to frame our understanding of this element of programming lessons. Method. The qualitative study used phenomenological methodology to investigate and interpret teachers’ ‘lived experiences’ of classroom talk. Interviews were conducted with 20 primary and secondary computing teachers about the content and effect of classroom talk in programming lessons. The context of the study was PRIMM, a lesson structure which highlights the importance of talk around a shared programming artefact. Results. Analysis of data revealed four main themes: how talk occurs in the classroom setting, how questioning is used to facilitate talk, how students are encouraged to explain, and why teachers feel it is important for students to use correct vocabulary. Discussion. Building on research into models of dialogue in education and our findings we suggest a model to frame talk in the programming classroom. We discuss the contribution of PRIMM to our understanding of talk in programming lessons. More research is needed to validate the proposed model and to investigate the impact of classroom talk on learning outcomes in programming.
{"title":"Teachers’ Perspectives on Talk in the Programming Classroom : Language as a Mediator","authors":"Sue Sentance, Jane Waite","doi":"10.1145/3446871.3469751","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3446871.3469751","url":null,"abstract":"Motivation. In education, classroom talk is a vital aspect of a lesson, and programming education is no exception. While the role of language and dialogue has been researched in depth in other school subjects, there has been less research in the programming context. Sociocultural theory highlights the importance of language as a mediator for learning, alongside other tools. Objectives. Drawing on sociocultural theory and models of dialogic education, the purpose of the study was to investigate the ways in which programming teachers use classroom talk to support learning, and to propose a model to frame our understanding of this element of programming lessons. Method. The qualitative study used phenomenological methodology to investigate and interpret teachers’ ‘lived experiences’ of classroom talk. Interviews were conducted with 20 primary and secondary computing teachers about the content and effect of classroom talk in programming lessons. The context of the study was PRIMM, a lesson structure which highlights the importance of talk around a shared programming artefact. Results. Analysis of data revealed four main themes: how talk occurs in the classroom setting, how questioning is used to facilitate talk, how students are encouraged to explain, and why teachers feel it is important for students to use correct vocabulary. Discussion. Building on research into models of dialogue in education and our findings we suggest a model to frame talk in the programming classroom. We discuss the contribution of PRIMM to our understanding of talk in programming lessons. More research is needed to validate the proposed model and to investigate the impact of classroom talk on learning outcomes in programming.","PeriodicalId":309835,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132672962","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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