COMPSCI 747 Historical Overview Early years Seymour Papert

COMPSCI 747 Historical Overview

Early years • Seymour Papert • Developed Logo (1967) • Mindstorms (1980) • Lego Mindstorms

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Visual Programming Languages Text-based languages require precision of language • Spelling mistakes cause syntax errors • Hard for young children Visual programming languages are easier to use • Allow children to engage in programming tasks • Interface can ensure every program is syntactically correct

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Shifting focus of CS Education research • Novice programmers are one major focus • Online tools that support teaching practices – assessment • Learning analytics – analysing student data • More emphasis now on K-12 curriculum • Computational thinking • Gender Equity

The Rainfall Problem • Elliot Soloway (1982) • Write a program that repeatedly reads in positive integers, until it reads the integer 99999. After seeing 99999, it should print out the average. • Most students struggled to produce a correct solution. Most subsequent studies have confirmed these findings.

Studying the Novice programmer Edited by Elliot Soloway and James Spohrer (1989) • • programming constructs planning misconceptions errors • Research in 1980 s suggested that students struggled most with planning programs.

Can students write code? • Mc. Cracken et al. (2001) • • • ITi. CSE working group Multi-institutional, multi-national study of program writing Context was CS 1 / CS 2 courses Average score was 23/110 “students did much more poorly than we expected” • Tasks were: • Program an RPN calculator • Programming an infix calculator without precedence • Programing an infix calculation with parentheses to indicate precedence

Can students understand code? Lister et al. (2004) “Leeds Study” • • Multi-institutional, multi-national Code contains arrays, loops, conditions Multiple choice answers What is the output? • Many students couldn’t read code and choose the correct output • Assume reading is a pre-requisite for writing code – perhaps this explains the Mc. Cracken study?

Can students design software? • Eckerdal et al. (2006) Multi-institutional, multi-national Focused on graduating students Most could not develop a design 21% nothing 41% added insignificant amount to existing description and no design • 29% gave partial solution • 9% produced reasonable designs • • • Design a “Super Alarm Clock” Your system will need to: • Allow a student to set an alarm to wake themselves up. • Allow a student to set an alarm to remind themselves to go to sleep. • Record when a student tells the system that they are about to go to sleep. • Record when a student tells the system that they have woken up, and whether it is due to an alarm or not (within 2 minutes of an alarm going off). • Make recommendations as to when a student needs to go to sleep. This should include "yellow alerts" when the student will need sleep soon, and "red alerts" when they need to sleep now. • Store the collected data in a server or database for later analysis by researchers. The server/database system (which will also trigger the yellow/red alerts) will be designed and implemented by another team. You should, however, indicate in your design the behaviour you expect from the back-end system. • Report students who are becoming dangerously sleep-deprived to someone who cares about them (their mother? ). This is indicated by a student being given three “red alerts" in a row. • Provide reports to a student showing their sleep patterns over time, allowing them to see how often they have ignored alarms, and to identify clusters of dangerous, or beneficial, sleep behaviour.

Code writing and code reading • BRACElet project (Whalley et al. ) • Relationships between code writing, code tracing and code explaining • • Possible hierarchy of skills Code tracing Code explaining (Explain in plain English) Code writing

How do students learn? • Teague and Lister (2014) • • • Neo-Piagetian theory Swapping contents of variables Rotating contents of an array Reversing operations • Pre-operational – trace code, but focus on details • Concrete operational – reason about code, use diagrams.

Longitudinal study of a novice programmer • Teague and Lister (2014) • Series of “think aloud” sessions • Multiple sessions within first semester - follow-up three semesters later • Results • Exhibited mostly sensorimotor reasoning, then pre-operational reasoning. • Follow up showed concrete operational reasoning • Conclusion: Learning to program may take longer than we think.

Pedagogy

Definitions • Pedagogy • The method and practice of teaching • Broader and more inclusive than instructional design • Instructional Design • The process by which instruction is improved through the analysis of learning needs and systematic development of learning experiences. Instructional designers often use technology and multimedia as tools to enhance instruction

Pedagogical approaches • Traditional lectures: (Teacher centric) • Open-ended instruction: Complex open problems • Discovery learning: Students solve problems without clear direction • Worked examples: Examples are given step-by-step • Experiential learning: Authentic activities • Active learning: Learn by doing something • Case studies: Generalize principles from detailed case studies • Peer learning: Students learn from each other

Structuring content delivery • Make goals clear • Sequence of topics • Logical connections between topics • Connection with existing knowledge • Opportunities to practice and identify misconceptions • Summarize • Move from simple to more complex • Use before create

Active learning • Discussion • Peer Review • Brainstorming • Problem solving • Role Playing • Kinaesthetic learning • Games • Simulations

Creating discussion • Ask open-ended questions • Rather than ask “Is this…”, “How could we…” • Use think-pair share • Ask students to expand their comments • Create cognitive dissonance

Peer review, observation of classroom • Classroom climate • Engagement and interest of students • Structure of the material • Effectiveness of activities • Related to content • Appropriate difficulty • Engaging to students • Flow and timing