Warren's Question Categories and Subject Descriptors

ABSTRACT In this paper, we present an extended examination of a specific, single, instance of transfer of teaching practice. The investigation uses a combination of interpretative analytic techniques from critical literary studies, and grounded theory. From this analysis we make conjectures about some of the ways in which educators change their teaching practice and suggest that these natural practices hold a challenge both for computing education research and educational development. Categories and Subject Descriptors K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education General Terms Theory SCENE SETTING This paper examines a question, sent by email to a group of colleagues on a private email list. Warren, a computing educator, asks if he can visit a colleague's lab classes. As computing educators we recognize the setting: the rows of monitors, students typing, surfing the Internet, looking at one another's screens, their side conversations, our irrelevancy. And in its familiarity it looks like one of the mundane emails that we read-and ignore-daily. Indeed, none of the 17 recipients respond to the list. It is Warren's second question, three days later, that produces the short series of responses we analyse here. In this paper, we look at Warren's questions and the responses they elicit, from our perspective as computing education researchers. We have several purposes in doing so. First, the exchange explores and illuminates individual and collective practices emerging from the Disciplinary Commons projec

Multi-Institutional, Multi-National Studies in CSEd Research: Some Design Considerations and Trade-offs

ABSTRACT One indication of the maturation of Computer Science Education as a research-based discipline is the recent emergence of several largescale studies spanning multiple institutions. This paper examines a "family" of these multi-institutional, multi-national studies, detailing core elements and points of difference in both study design and the organization of the research team, and highlighting the costs and benefits associated with the different approaches