Using Common Problem Sets to Increase Student Engagement and Retention in CS2

Data Structures ranks as one of the most challenging courses in our program core curriculum. It has the steepest learning curve for our students, and the lowest retention rate. A persistent problem we face in teaching data structures is finding time and a mechanism to cover the mathematical concepts that are necessary for understanding the important aspects of the course. The authors addressed the challenge with various approaches over several years including: reorganization of the discrete mathematics I (MA220) and discrete mathematics II (MA290); reordering coverage of topics in courses, changing pre-requisites, changing credit hours, requiring students to submit weekly blogs, developing common problem sets to be used in both the MA220 and CS242, and providing peer-assisted learning sessions. In this poster presentation, we share our integrated pedagogical approach, and the benefits and shortcomings of various approaches we tried over the years. We share the results of a student survey we developed to assess our latest approach of using common problem sets in both courses. The survey results show that by using common problem sets, students had the opportunity to make connections not only between these two courses, but also between how what is being learned in the classroom fits into a broader scope of learning.