In-class common-reporting workshops in computer science

Instructors optimize the use of class time for quantity and depth of learning. Technology has opened new opportunities in these respects. The technique reported on here, In-class Common-reporting Workshops (INCREWs) consist of teams of up to three students tackling a creative class-relevant problem and displaying their evolving results on a common, projected spreadsheet format in real time. We report on surveys, which have shown a positive reception for INCREWs.Accepted manuscrip

Una Aproximación a la evaluación de laboratorio en programación de sistemas

Tras la implantación del proceso de Bolonia en España, los nuevos planes de estudio asociados a las titulaciones de Informática cuentan con asignaturas relacionadas con la programación de sistemas (ej. Sistemas Operativos). La adquisición de determinadas competencias prácticas, específicas de dichas asignaturas, resultan esenciales para que el estudiante sea capaz de asimilar y manejar los conceptos fundamentales asociados a las mismas. Los mecanismos de evaluación y calificación clásicos pueden plantean ciertas deficiencias a la hora de validar la correcta adquisición de dichas competencias, especialmente en la parte vinculada a los aspectos prácticos. En este contexto, el presente trabajo describe una aproximación para la realización de pruebas prácticas evaluables en el laboratorio, así como una descripción sobre la metodología empleada en la construcción de dichas pruebas. La exposición y discusión de los resultados, obtenidos como consecuencia de su aplicación en los últimos tres años en una asignatura obligatoria vinculada al estudio de los Sistemas Operativos en Ingeniería en Informática, ha permitido obtener conclusiones que contribuyen a afianzar la adquisición de competencias por parte del estudiante.After the implantation of the Bologne Process in Spain, the new undergraduate studies related to Computer Science integrate courses that cover Operating Systems, Distributed Systems and Concurrent Programming. Acquiring and developing the specific practical competences of these subjects is essential so that the students are able to understand and apply the basic concepts. Classical evaluation and grade methods may suffer from some limitations when validating the adequate acquisition of the previously mentioned competences, specially those related to the practical aspects. Within this context, this work discusses the employed approach to carry out the practical assesment of the students in the laboratory and describes the adopted methodology. The obteined results, after having carried out this approach during the last three years in a required course of Operating Systems, show how this approach has contributed to guarantee the acquisition of essential competences on behalf of the students.Peer Reviewe

The More You Teach, the Less They Learn: Effects of Teaching Approaches on Learning Performance

Typically, an introductory programming course is a required course for business college undergraduate students majoring ininformation systems. Different instructors may have different approaches to teaching this course: Some give lectures andassign programming exercises, while others only assign programming exercises without giving lectures. This researchdeliberately compared the effects of the two teaching approaches on learning performance. Results indicated that: (1) bothapproaches are effective, and (2) the programming-exercises-only approach is more effective than the other approach. Furtheranalysis indicated that students’ current programming skills, prior programming experience, and grade expectation, aresignificant antecedents of students’ performance in terms of their final grades for the course. These results suggested thatwhen teaching introductory programming courses, instructors may consider choosing the student-centered active learningover the traditional lecture format in order to improve students’ learning performance

Classroom Interaction Redefined: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Moving Beyond Traditional Classroom Spaces to Promote Student Engagement

Student learning and engagement are paramount for educational institutions. This paper examines the impact of an interactive learning space on teaching and learning for both faculty and students. Specifically, four faculty from disparate disciplines examine the impacts on teaching and learning of an active learning space designed for student engagement compared to traditional classrooms.  Statistically significant results favor learning experiences in an interactive classroom due to ease of movement in the space as well as increased collaboration and active engagement. This work provides evidence that classroom design affects student learning

An Empirical Study Comparing the Learning Environments of Open and Closed Computer Laboratories

In Computer Science and Information Systems courses, where the computer is an integral part of the course, there are two main ways in which the practical component of the course, the computer laboratory class, may be organized. They may be closed laboratories which are scheduled and staffed in the same way as other classes, or open laboratories where the students come and go as they please. In universities in the United States, the open laboratory is more common, whereas in Australia, it is the closed laboratory that provides the practical experience for students. This study investigates differences between students’ perceptions of some aspects of the learning environment of open and closed computer laboratories, and also investigates differences in student outcomes from courses that adopt these two approaches to organizing computer laboratory classes. The use of closed laboratories requires more resources in terms of physical space and equipment and greater commitment on the part of the faculty. This study investigates whether the extra resources and commitment lead to an improvement in student outcomes. In the study, two previously developed instruments, the Computer Laboratory Environment Inventory (CLEI) and the Attitude towards Computing and Computing Courses Questionnaire (ACCC) were used. The CLEI has five scales for measuring students’ perceptions of aspects of their laboratory environment. These are Student Cohesiveness, Open-Endedness, Integration, Technology Adequacy and Laboratory Availability. The ACCC has four scales, Anxiety, Enjoyment, Usefulness of Computers and Usefulness of the Course. Of the environment variables, significant differences in the means were found for Open- Endedness, Technology Adequacy and Laboratory Availability. There was also a difference for Anxiety. There was no significant difference in achievement by students on the courses

Teaching Introductory Programming to IS Students: The Impact of Teaching Approaches on Learning Performance

Introductory programming courses are typically required for undergraduate students majoring in Information Systems. Instructors use different approaches to teaching this course: some lecturing and assigning programming exercises, others only assigning programming exercises without lectures. This research compares the effects of these two teaching approaches on learning performance by collecting data from two sections of an introductory programming course in an urban public university. One section used lectures and assignments while the other used assignments only. Data analysis included tests within each dataset, tests across the two datasets, and tests of a simple model over the combined dataset. Results indicated that both approaches are effective, but the exercises-only approach is more effective than lectures combined with exercises. Further analysis indicated that students’ current programming skills, prior programming experience, and grade expectations are significant antecedents of learning performance in the course. Results support the conclusion suggesting that when teaching introductory programming courses, instructors may want to consider choosing the student-centered active learning over the traditional lecture format in order to improve students’ learning performance. This study contributes to the improvement of teaching and learning effectiveness as well as efficiency of introductory programming classes to the benefit of instructors and students, alike

An Active Learning Technique Enhanced with Electronic Polls

Only very few students answer questions like: “Did you understand this?”, “Do you have any question?”, etc. In this paper, we present an active learning technique that is based on the think-pair-share technique improved with the introduction of electronic polls to obtain anonymous instant feedback from the students. Electronic polls have been usually performed using Classroom Response Systems in the related literature, but these systems introduce a number of problems related to the excessive cost of the systems and the technical problems that they may cause to the instructors. Thus, we implement our active learning technique in an Interaction System that provides the benefits of supporting electronic polls but avoids the problems of Classroom Response Systems. We also present an example of how we applied our proposal to an Operating System lectures. Finally, we evaluate our proposal and demonstrate that the results we obtain are very similar to the ones obtained in the existing CRS literature without the problems that they introduce