Second level computer science: The Irish K-12 journey begins

This paper initially describes the introduction of a new computer science subject for the Irish leaving certificate course. This is comparable to US high school exit exams (AP computer science principals) or the UK A level computer science. In doing so the authors wish to raise international awareness of the new subject’s structure and content. Second, this paper presents the current work of the authors, consisting of early initiatives to try and give the new subject the highest chances of success. The initiatives consist of two facets: The first is the delivery of two-hour computing camps at second level schools (to address stereotypes and provide insight on what computer science really is), which was delivered to 2,943 students, in 95 schools between September 2017 and June 2018. Second, the authors followed this with teacher continual professional development (CPD) sessions, totalling 22, to just over 500 teachers. Early findings are presented, showing potentially concerning trends for gender diversity and CPD development. A call is then raised, to the international computer science education community for wisdom and suggestions that the community may have developed from prior experience. This is to obtain feedback and recommendations for the new subject and the authors’ current initiatives, to address early concerns and help develop the initiatives further

Promoting a Growth Mindset in CS1: Does One Size Fit All? A Pilot Study

This paper describes a pilot intervention conducted in CS1, in theacademic year of 2016-2017. The intervention was based on thework of Dweck, promoting a growth Mindset in an effort to in-crease performance in introductory programming. The study alsoexamined data from a previous year (as a control group) to compareand contrast the results. Multiple factors related to programmingperformance were recorded with the control and treatment group,which were measured at multiple intervals throughout the course,to monitor changes as the pilot intervention was implemented.This study found a significant increase in programming perfor-mance when the intervention was deployed. However, althoughperformance increased for the treatment group, the average Mindsetdid not significantly change towards a growth Mindset (replicatingthe findings of Cutts et al, 2010). To further explore this finding,a preliminary deeper investigation using k-means clustering wascarried out. The investigation found that the intervention promoteda growth Mindset for some student profiles and a fixed Mindset forothers. This finding is important for educators considering interven-tion development or implementation of Mindset, and demonstratesthat a Mindset intervention may not be suitable for all learners

The Experiences and Views of Lesbian Parents and Adult Children of Lesbian Parents in Ireland: an Exploratory Study

This research focused on the experiences and views of lesbian parents and adult children of lesbian parents. The experiences of the members of lesbian-parented families determined the main areas that were explored. The lack of international and Irish research on the lived experiences of lesbian parents and their children prompted this investigation. The study was conducted using qualitative, semi-structured interviews. The sample consisted of three lesbian parents and two adult children of lesbian parents from two parent lesbian families. The findings highlighted the experiences of the parents and adult children from lesbian-parented families in reference to: the Irish legal context; dealing with disclosure of their family type to others for lesbian parents and their children; sources of support for lesbian parents and their children; lesbian parents and their children in the education system; homophobic bullying of children with lesbian parents and the division of labour and the difference in parenting roles between the biological and non-biological mother. Recommendations made in this study included addressing the rights of same-sex families in Irish law, additional support groups for same-sex parents and their children and that further research undertaken with a wider sample including an exploration of the experiences of male gay parents and their children

Predicting and Improving Performance on Introductory Programming Courses (CS1)

This thesis describes a longitudinal study on factors which predict academic success in introductory programming at undergraduate level, including the development of these factors into a fully automated web based system (which predicts students who are at risk of not succeeding early in the introductory programming module) and interventions to address attrition rates on introductory programming courses (CS1). Numerous studies have developed models for predicting success in CS1, however there is little evidence on their ability to generalise or on their use beyond early investigations. In addition, they are seldom followed up with interventions, after struggling students have been identified. The approach overcomes this by providing a web-based real time system, with a prediction model at its core that has been longitudinally developed and revalidated, with recommendations for interventions which educators could implement to support struggling students that have been identified. This thesis makes five fundamental contributions. The first is a revalidation of a prediction model named PreSS. The second contribution is the development of a web-based, real time implementation of the PreSS model, named PreSS#. The third contribution is a large longitudinal, multi-variate, multi-institutional study identifying predictors of performance and analysing machine learning techniques (including deep learning and convolutional neural networks) to further develop the PreSS model. This resulted in a prediction model with approximately 71% accuracy, and over 80% sensitivity, using data from 11 institutions with a sample size of 692 students. The fourth contribution is a study on insights on gender differences in CS1; identifying psychological, background, and performance differences between male and female students to better inform the prediction model and the interventions. The final, fifth contribution, is the development of two interventions that can be implemented early in CS1, once identified by PreSS# to potentially improve student outcomes. The work described in this thesis builds substantially on earlier work, providing valid and reliable insights on gender differences, potential interventions to improve performance and an unsurpassed, generalizable prediction model, developed into a real time web-based system

Microorganismos eficaces y lombrifiltro para la remoción de residuos lácteos de la planta quesera “La Bodeguilla – Valle de Moquegua”

El alto poder contaminante del residuo lácteo de la industria quesera motivaron la investigación, teniendo como objetivo evaluar el efecto de aplicación de los microorganismos eficaces y el lombrifiltro para la remoción de residuos lácteos de la planta quesera “La bodeguilla – Valle de Moquegua” de la provincia Mariscal Nieto; se acondicionó un biofiltro de cuatro capas añadiendo las lombrices conociéndose como “lombrifiltro”; las variables experimentales fueron los métodos de aplicación durante cuatro semanas, tales como (Aplicación de microorganismos eficaces, aplicación del lombrifiltro y la aplicación combinada de microorganismos eficaces con el lombrifiltro), fueron evaluados respecto al parámetro indicador de Demanda Química de Oxígeno (DQO), donde el residuo lácteo obtuvo 55530mg/L de DQO y los efluentes de los métodos aplicados midieron lo siguiente; microorganismos eficaces (DQO = 25200mg/L), del lombrifiltro (DQO = 12000mg/L) y de la aplicación combinada de microorganismos eficaces con el lombrifiltro (DQO = 13600 mg/L), siendo los efluentes con mayor porcentaje de remoción de DQO, los métodos de aplicación del lombrifiltro (78.39%) y la aplicación combinada de microorganismos eficaces con el lombrifiltro (75.51%), seguido por la aplicación de microorganismos eficaces (54.62%), estadísticamente hay diferencias significativas entre los métodos de aplicación a un nivel de significancia del 5% y las características fisicoquímicas (SST, SS, DQO, DBO5, pH , A y G) de los efluentes son influidas por la aplicación de los microorganismos eficaces y el lombrifiltro logrando estar dentro de los límites máximos permisibles, a excepción de la DQO y la DBO5 para ser vertidos, así mismo las características microbiológicas (Coliformes totales y termotolerantes) de los efluentes son influidas significativamente por dichos métodos obteniendo resultados negativos por la aplicación combinada de microorganismos eficaces con el lombrifiltro.Tesi

CSLINC - Development of a National Outreach VLE

Over the last year an online learning platform has been developed and piloted to the Irish second level education system allowing both students and teachers to participate in introductory computing modules. This poster will outline the development of the registration process of a system that is capable of managing potentially 728 schools, 1000+ classrooms and one million students (the entire Irish second level school system). CSLINC is an online student virtual learning environment for computing consisting of several modules built by academics and industry leaders and disseminated to schools through Moodle, our selected virtual learning environment. While Moodle has a certain amount of automation and user management built-in, this poster will present the initial design considerations and the automation process developed to allow for school centered mass registration on Moodle. This is of value to other CER educators who may consider developing such a system and enrollment process. Future work will consist of a detailed publication on the development process

CS1: how will they do? How can we help? A decade of research and practice

Background and Context: Computer Science attrition rates (in the western world) are very concerning, with a large number of students failing to progress each year. It is well acknowledged that a significant factor of this attrition, is the students’ difficulty to master the introductory programming module, often referred to as CS1. Objective: The objective of this article is to describe the evolution of a prediction model named PreSS (Predict Student Success) over a 13-year period (2005–2018). Method: This article ties together, the PreSS prediction model; pilot studies; a longitudinal, multi-institutional re-validation and replication study; improvements to the model since its inception; and interventions to reduce attrition rates. Findings: The outcome of this body of work is an end-to-end real-time web-based tool (PreSS#), which can predict student success early in an introductory programming module (CS1), with an accuracy of 71%. This tool is enhanced with interventions that were developed in conjunction with PreSS#, which improved student performance in CS1. Implications: This work contributes significantly to the computer science education (CSEd) community and the ITiCSE 2015 working group’s call (in particular the second grand challenge), by re-validating and developing further the original PreSS model, 13 years after it was developed, on a modern, disparate, multi-institutional data set

A Collaborative Online Micro: Bit K-12 Teacher PD Workshop

This poster describes the use of online technology to deliver K12 teacher professional development (PD) during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland. Traditionally these sessions are delivered in person, with a focus on hand-on activities, but the sudden changes faced by the closures in Ireland required an alternative approach for delivering these sessions. The PD session presented in this poster was a more technically challenging micro:bit workshop, which was delivered online using the micro:bit classroom. This is typically used as an in-class, one to many instructor tool, and trialing this as a PD collaborative tool, was a novel approach. This poster presents the delivery and methodology of the session, the collaborative online format, and feedback from the participants

The Elusive Metrics - Are We Telling the Full Story in Educational Data Mining?

The use of Education Data Mining (EDM) has seen a significant increase in recent years. A recent report identified notable concerns with the literature relating to the lack of metrics presented in EDM research (in particular, predicting student performance). This poster presents details on these concerns that may inhibit future re-validation studies or worse, models that initially report strong findings which may not generalise. This poster also declares a call to action for future studies to present such metrics, and finally describes ongoing work in this space (a systematic literature review