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This paper reports on two semesters experience with computer-mediated group discussion exercises in a CS2 computer programming class. The class is a gateway for computer science and computer engineering students, where many students have difficulty succeeding well enough to proceed in their major. The exercises focus on Java concepts. They are designed to require students to rely on each other, but also be individually accountable. Learning gains measured in this trial have been mixed, with the least prepared student (as measured by pretest) in each discussion group showing the highest learning gains, while best prepared student in the discussion group showed score reductions on average. This paper reports on first year results of learning gains and of surveys of student experience with the exercises
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Student Understanding and Engagement in a Class Employing COMPS Computer Mediated Problem Solving: A First Look
COMPS computer-mediated group discussion exercises are being added to a second-semester computer programming class. The class is a gateway for computer science and computer engineering students, where many students have difficulty succeeding well enough to proceed in their major. This paper reports on first results of surveys on student experience with the exercises. It also reports on the affective states observed in the discussions that are candidates for analysis of group functioning. As a step toward computer monitoring of the discussions, an experiment in using dialogue features to identify the gender of the participants is described.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1504918
- PAR ID:
- 10023126
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- CEUR workshop proceedings
- Volume:
- 1584
- ISSN:
- 1613-0073
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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