This research is focused on how to support students’ acquisition of program construction skills through worked examples. Although examples have been consistently proven to be valuable for student’s learning, the learning technology for computer science education lacks program construction examples with interactive elements that could engage students. The goal of this work is to investigate the value of the “engaging” features in programming examples. We introduce PCEX, an online tool developed to present program construction examples in an engaging fashion. We also present the results of a controlled study with a between-subject design that was conducted in a large introductory Python programming class to compare PCEX with non-interactive worked examples focused on program construction. The results of our study show the positive impact of interactive program construction examples on student’s engagement, problem-solving performance, and learning.
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PCEX: Interactive Program Construction Examples for Learning Programming
A sizable body of research on instructional practices supports the use of worked examples for acquiring cognitive skills in domains such as mathematics and physics. Although examples are also important in the domain of programming, existing research on programming examples is limited. Program examples are used by instructors to achieve two important goals: to explain program behavior and to demonstrate program construction patterns. Program behavior examples are used to demonstrate the semantics of various program constructs (i.e., what is happening inside a program or an algorithm when it is executed). Program construction examples illustrate how to construct a program that achieves a specific purpose. While both functions of program examples are important for learning, most of the example-focused research in computer science education focused on technologies for augmenting program behavior examples such as program visualization, tracing tables, etc. In contrast, advanced technologies for presenting program construction examples were rarely explored. This work introduces interactive Program Construction Examples (PCEX) to begin a systematic exploration of worked-out program construction examples in the domain of computer science education. A classroom evaluation and analysis of the survey data demonstrated that the usage of PCEX examples is associated with better student's learning and performance.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1740775
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10112138
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 18th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 9
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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The biodesign studio: Constructions and reflections of high school youth on making with living mediamore » « less
Abstract Most constructionist efforts have focused on supporting learners with tools for designing with digital and/or physical media. Recent developments in life sciences now allow K‐12 learners to design with living materials, or to biodesign. In this paper, we report on the development of a biodesign studio activity called biocakes wherein teams of high school youth genetically modified a yeast strain to bake a nutrient fortified food product. Using a qualitative deductive analysis of classroom observations, interviews and projects, we examined high school youth experiences and reflections of these activities to answer three research questions: (1) What kind of artefacts did youth make with living media? (2) How did youth engage in biodesign? and (3) What did youth have to say about their biodesign experiences? We discuss how our analyses of biodesign applications highlight the importance of assembly practices, social engagement and imaginative design for constructionist learning. These insights provide compelling examples for designing with living media in K‐12 education.
Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic?
Constructionist perspectives shape important ideas about what we know about science learning, and notably in computer science fields.
One widely taken up example includes making, where learners use crafts to make interactive computational objects.
In life science, constructionism also provides insights about learning using digital media to model biological systems or interact with living materials.
What this paper adds?
This paper extends these perspectives by examining production and engagement when learners construct
with living materials—an approach that has only recently been possible with the development of accessible wet lab tools.We frame learning activities as a studio model—that emphasised application design, iteration and critique—to better assess the roles assembly, construction and speculative design play in production that uses living materials.
Our findings suggest that assembly is important for creating accessible points of entry to complex biological fabrication processes.
We also find that speculative design provides an opportunity for learners to extend their existing abilities beyond what is otherwise available given their expertise or access to resources, and thus expansively explore related ideas.
Implications for practice and/or policy
Assembly and speculative design have important places in constructionist‐driven production with living materials and could, therefore, be leveraged in practice.
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3279720.3279726
