Creative Coding and Visual Portfolios for CS1

In this paper, we present the design and development of a new approach to teaching the college-level introductory computing course (CS1) using the context of art and creative coding. Over the course of a semester, students create a portfolio of aesthetic visual designs that employ basic computing structures typically taught in traditional CS1 courses using the Processing programming language. The goal of this approach is to bring the excitement, creativity, and innovation fostered by the context of creative coding. We also present results from a comparative study involving two offerings of the new course at two different institutions. Additionally, we compare our results with another successful approach that uses personal robots to teach CS1

Creative Coding and Visual Portfolios for CS1

In this paper, we present the design and development of a new approach to teaching the college-level introductory computing course (CS1) using the context of art and creative coding. Over the course of a semester, students create a portfolio of aesthetic visual designs that employ basic computing structures typically taught in traditional CS1 courses using the Processing programming language. The goal of this approach is to bring the excitement, creativity, and innovation fostered by the context of creative coding. We also present results from a comparative study involving two offerings of the new course at two different institutions. Additionally, we compare our results with another successful approach that uses personal robots to teach CS1

Calico: a multi-programming-language, multi-context framework designed for computer science education

The Calico project is a multi-language, multi-context programming framework and learning environment for computing education. This environment is designed to support several interoperable programming languages (including Python, Scheme, and a visual programming language), a variety of pedagogical contexts (including scientific visualization, robotics, and art), and an assortment of physical devices (including different educational robotics platforms and a variety of physical sensors). In addition, the environment is designed to support collaboration and modern, interactive learning. In this paper we describe the Calico project, its design and goals, our prototype system, and its current use

Assessing the quality of a student-generated question repository

We present results from a study that categorizes and assesses the quality of questions and explanations authored by students, in question repositories produced as part of the summative assessment in introductory physics courses over the past two years. Mapping question quality onto the levels in the cognitive domain of Bloom's taxonomy, we find that students produce questions of high quality. More than three-quarters of questions fall into categories beyond simple recall, in contrast to similar studies of student-authored content in different subject domains. Similarly, the quality of student-authored explanations for questions was also high, with approximately 60% of all explanations classified as being of high or outstanding quality. Overall, 75% of questions met combined quality criteria, which we hypothesize is due in part to the in-class scaffolding activities that we provided for students ahead of requiring them to author questions.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figure

Towards an industry-collaborative, reflective software learning and development environment

A significant mismatch (88%) has been found between what employers and graduates perceived as important abilities and how universities had prepared graduates for employment. Conventional Teaching and Learning approaches fall short of providing the kind of learning experiences needed to prepare graduates for the realities of professional practice in industry. On the other hand, current students have very different learning styles than their forebears. Their learning preferences are experiential, working in teams, and using technology for learning. One solution to address this mismatch issue is the software development studio. Our aim is to provide an industry-collaborative, reflective learning environment that will effect the students development of holistic skills, such as teamwork, collaboration and communication, together with technical skills, in a discipline context. This paper further describes the design and validation via prototyping for our software development studio, the progress that we have made so far, and presents the preliminary insights gleaned from our studio prototyping. The prototypes raised issues of attitudinal change, communication, reflection, sharing, mentoring, use of process, `doing time, relationships and innovation

Reflective Diary for Professional Development of Novice Teachers

Many starting teachers of computer science have great professional skill but often lack pedagogical training. Since providing expert mentorship directly during their lessons would be quite costly, institutions usually offer separate teacher training sessions for novice instructors. However, the reflection on teaching performed with a significant delay after the taught lesson limits the possible impact on teachers. To bridge this gap, we introduced a weekly semi-structured reflective practice to supplement the teacher training sessions at our faculty. We created a paper diary that guides the starting teachers through the process of reflection. Over the course of the semester, the diary poses questions of increasing complexity while also functioning as a reference to the topics covered in teacher training. Piloting the diary on a group of 25 novice teaching assistants resulted in overwhelmingly positive responses and provided the teacher training sessions with valuable input for discussion. The diary also turned out to be applicable in a broader context: it was appreciated and used by several experienced university teachers from multiple faculties and even some high-school teachers. The diary is freely available online, including source and print versions

Increasing Student Performance Through the Use of Web Services in Introductory Programming Classrooms: Results from a Series of Quasi-Experiments

An introduction to programming course can be a challenge for both students and instructors. This paper describes a study that introduced Web services (WS) and Service-Oriented Architecture in Information Systems 1 (IS 1) and Computer Science 1 (CS 1) programming courses over a two-year period. WS were used as an instruction tool based on their increased use in industry as well as their ability to provide a real world feel to student programming activities. The paper includes an example WS teaching module and a proposed implementation model for future studies based on lessons learned from the current experiment. The study was successful in showing a significant increase in student test performance for WS-taught courses over standard-taught courses