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1. Witness Feedback for Introductory CS Theory Assignments

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3408877.3439585  

   Bezáková, Ivona ; Fluet, Kimberly ; Hemaspaandra, Edith ; Miller, Hannah ; Narváez, David E. ( January 2021 , 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE))

   null (Ed.)

   Computing theory analyzes abstract computational models to rigorously study the computational difficulty of various problems. Introductory computing theory can be challenging for undergraduate students, and the overarching goal of our research is to help students learn these computational models. The most common pedagogical tool for interacting with these models is the Java Formal Languages and Automata Package (JFLAP). We developed a JFLAP server extension, which accepts homework submissions from students, evaluates the submission as correct or incorrect, and provides a witness string when the submission is incorrect. Our extension currently provides witness feedback for deterministic finite automata, nondeterministic finite automata, regular expressions, context-free grammars, and pushdown automata. In Fall 2019, we ran a preliminary investigation on two synchronized sections (Control and Study) of the required undergraduate course Introduction to Computer Science Theory. The Study section (n = 29) used our extension for five targeted homework questions, and the Control section (n = 35) submitted these problems using traditional means. The Study section strongly outperformed the Control section with respect to the percent of perfect homework grades for the targeted homework questions. Our most interesting result was student persistence: with only the short witness string as feedback, students voluntarily persisted in submitting attempts until correct. 

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2. Interactive Editing of Circuits in a Step-Based Tutoring System

   Skromme, B ; Redshaw, C. ; Gupta, A ; Gupta, S ; Andrei, P ; Erives, H ; Bailey, A ; Thompson, W ; Bansal, S. ( July 2020 , American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference)

   Step-based tutoring systems are known to be more effective than traditional answer-based systems. They however require that each step in a student’s work be accepted and evaluated automatically to provide effective feedback. In the domain of linear circuit analysis, it is frequently necessary to allow students to draw or edit circuits on their screen to simplify or otherwise transform them. Here, the interface developed to accept such input and provide immediate feedback in the Circuit Tutor system is described, along with systematic assessment data. Advanced simplification methods such as removing circuit sections that are removably hinged, voltage-splittable, or current-splittable are taught to students in an interactive tutorial and then supported in the circuit editor itself. To address the learning curve associated with such an interface, ~70 video tutorials were created to demonstrate exactly how to work the randomly generated problems at each level of each of the tutorials in the system. A complete written record or “transcript” of student’s work in the system is being made available, showing both incorrect and correct steps. Introductory interactive (multiple choice) tutorials are now included on most topics. Assessment of exercises using the interactive editor was carried out by professional evaluators for several institutions, including three that heavily serve underrepresented minorities. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used, including focus groups, surveys, and interviews. Controlled, randomized, blind evaluations were carried out in three different course sections in Spring and Fall 2019 to evaluate three tutorials using the interactive editor, comparing use of Circuit Tutor to both a commercial answer-based system and to conventional textbook-based paper homework. In Fall 2019, students rated the software a mean of 4.14/5 for being helpful to learn the material vs. 3.05/5 for paper homework (HW), p < 0.001 and effect size d = 1.11σ. On relevant exam questions that semester, students scored significantly (p = 0.014) higher with an effect size of d = 0.64σ when using Circuit Tutor compared to paper HW in one class section, with no significant difference in the other section. 

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3. Mining SQL Problem Solving Patterns using Advanced Sequence Processing Algorithms

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3596673.3596973  

   Yang, Sophia ; Herman, Geoffrey L. ; Alawini, Abdussalam ( June 2023 , DataEd '23: Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Data Systems Education: Bridging education practice with education research)

   SQL is a crucial language for managing relational database systems, and is an essential skill for individuals in roles such as researchers, developers, and business professionals who work with databases. However, learning SQL can be a challenge, presenting an opportunity to study the various methods students use to arrive at semantically equivalent SQL queries. In this study, we examined students’ SQL submissions to homework assignments in the Database Systems course offered to upper-level undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign during the Fall 2022 semester. Our goal was to understand how students arrive at SQL solutions and overcome challenges in the learning process by building on prior research on line chart visualizations that instructors can use to increase visibility on students who are struggling. However, a major limitation of this approach was the difficulty for instructors to sift through a large number of visuals representing each student’s performance on a SQL problem and generate action items at scale, especially when dealing with enrollments of over 700 students. To overcome this limitation, we developed a novel technique to generate textual representations of the student submission sequence using global sequence alignment scores and regular expression algorithms to further compact these submission sequences. This allows instructors to gain insights quickly, on an aggregate level, and in an automated manner, enabling them to identify students who may be struggling with SQL based on their submission sequence characteristics and take appropriate action to improve database education. Our study discovered common textual submission patterns and pattern elements, and we present our recommendations to instructors to improve database education based on these findings. 

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4. The Power of Playful Learning - Ethical Decision-Making in a Narrative-Driven, Fictional, Choose-Your-Own Adventure [Work In Progress]

   Wagner, T. ; Bassett ; L. ; Pascal, J. ; Burkey, D. D. ; Streiner, S. ( June 2023 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   We contend a better way to teach ethics to freshman engineering students would be to address engineering ethics not solely in the abstract of philosophy or moral development, but as situated in the everyday decisions of engineers. Since everyday decisions are not typically a part of university courses, our approach in large lecture classes is to simulate engineering decision-making situations using the role-playing mechanic and narrative structure of a fictional choose-your-own-adventure. Drawing on the contemporary learning theory of situated learning [1], [2], such playful learning may enable instructors to create assignments that induce students to break free of the typical student mindset of finding the “right” answer. Mars: An Ethical Expedition! is an interactive, 12 week, narrative game about the colonization of Mars by various engineering specialists. Students take on the role of a head engineer and are presented with situations that require high-stakes decision-making. Various game mechanics induce students to act as they would on-the-fly, within a real engineering project context, using personal reasoning and richly context-dependent justifications, rather than simply right/wrong answers. Each segment of the game is presented in audio and text that ends with a binary decision that determines what will happen next in the story. Historically, this game had been led by an instructor and played weekly, as a whole-class assignment, completed at the beginning of class. The class votes and the majority option is presented next. In addition to the central decision, there are also follow-up questions at the end of each week that provoke deeper analysis of the situation and reflection on the ethical principles involved. This prototype was initially developed within a learning management system, then supported by the TwineTM game engine, and studied in use in our 2021 NSF EETHICS grant. In 2022-23 the game was redesigned and extended using the GodotTM game engine. In addition to streamlining the gameplay loop and reducing the set-up and data management required by instructors, this redesign supported instructors with an option to allow the game to be student-paced and played by individual students or to keep the instructor-led 12 week whole-class playstyle. Our proposed driving research question is "In what ways does individual student play differ from whole class instructor-led play with regard to learning that ethical behavior is situated?" In the next phase of our ongoing investigation, we plan to further evaluate the use of playful assessment to estimate its validity and reliability in comparison to current best practices of engineering ethics assessment. 

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5. COVID-19 and Housing Security in Remote Alaska Native Communities

   Nicewonger, Todd E. ; McNair, Lisa D. ; Fritz, Stacey ; Supple, Laura ; Criss-Carboy, Laura ( November 2023 , Virginia Tech Publishing)

   Nicewonger, Todd E. ; McNair, Lisa D. ; Fritz, Stacey (Ed.)

   https://pressbooks.lib.vt.edu/alaskanative/ At the start of the pandemic, the editors of this annotated bibliography initiated a remote (i.e., largely virtual) ethnographic research project that investigated how COVID-19 was impacting off-site modular construction practices in Alaska Native communities. Many of these communities are located off the road system and thus face not only dramatically higher costs but multiple logistical challenges in securing licensed tradesmen and construction crews and in shipping building supplies and equipment to their communities. These barriers, as well as the region’s long winters and short building seasons, complicate the construction of homes and related infrastructure projects. Historically, these communities have also grappled with inadequate housing, including severe overcrowding and poor-quality building stock that is rarely designed for northern Alaska’s climate (Marino 2015). Moreover, state and federal bureaucracies and their associated funding opportunities often further complicate home building by failing to accommodate the digital divide in rural Alaska and the cultural values and practices of Native communities.[1] It is not surprising, then, that as we were conducting fieldwork for this project, we began hearing stories about these issues and about how the restrictions caused by the pandemic were further exacerbating them. Amidst these stories, we learned about how modular home construction was being imagined as a possible means for addressing both the complications caused by the pandemic and the need for housing in the region (McKinstry 2021). As a result, we began to investigate how modular construction practices were figuring into emergent responses to housing needs in Alaska communities. We soon realized that we needed to broaden our focus to capture a variety of prefabricated building methods that are often colloquially or idiomatically referred to as “modular.” This included a range of prefabricated building systems (e.g., manufactured, volumetric modular, system-built, and Quonset huts and other reused military buildings[2]). Our further questions about prefabricated housing in the region became the basis for this annotated bibliography. Thus, while this bibliography is one of multiple methods used to investigate these issues, it played a significant role in guiding our research and helped us bring together the diverse perspectives we were hearing from our interviews with building experts in the region and the wider debates that were circulating in the media and, to a lesser degree, in academia. The actual research for each of three sections was carried out by graduate students Lauren Criss-Carboy and Laura Supple.[3] They worked with us to identify source materials and their hard work led to the team identifying three themes that cover intersecting topics related to housing security in Alaska during the pandemic. The source materials collected in these sections can be used in a variety of ways depending on what readers are interested in exploring, including insights into debates on housing security in the region as the pandemic was unfolding (2021-2022). The bibliography can also be used as a tool for thinking about the relational aspects of these themes or the diversity of ways in which information on housing was circulating during the pandemic (and the implications that may have had on community well-being and preparedness). That said, this bibliography is not a comprehensive analysis. Instead, by bringing these three sections together with one another to provide a snapshot of what was happening at that time, it provides a critical jumping off point for scholars working on these issues. The first section focuses on how modular housing figured into pandemic responses to housing needs. In exploring this issue, author Laura Supple attends to both state and national perspectives as part of a broader effort to situate Alaska issues with modular housing in relation to wider national trends. This led to the identification of multiple kinds of literature, ranging from published articles to publicly circulated memos, blog posts, and presentations. These materials are important source materials that will likely fade in the vastness of the Internet and thus may help provide researchers with specific insights into how off-site modular construction was used – and perhaps hyped – to address pandemic concerns over housing, which in turn may raise wider questions about how networks, institutions, and historical experiences with modular construction are organized and positioned to respond to major societal disruptions like the pandemic. As Supple pointed out, most of the material identified in this review speaks to national issues and only a scattering of examples was identified that reflect on the Alaskan context. The second section gathers a diverse set of communications exploring housing security and homelessness in the region. The lack of adequate, healthy housing in remote Alaska communities, often referred to as Alaska’s housing crisis, is well-documented and preceded the pandemic (Guy 2020). As the pandemic unfolded, journalists and other writers reported on the immense stress that was placed on already taxed housing resources in these communities (Smith 2020; Lerner 2021). The resulting picture led the editors to describe in their work how housing security in the region exists along a spectrum that includes poor quality housing as well as various forms of houselessness including, particularly relevant for the context, “hidden homelessness” (Hope 2020; Rogers 2020). The term houseless is a revised notion of homelessness because it captures a richer array of both permanent and temporary forms of housing precarity that people may experience in a region (Christensen et al. 2107). By identifying sources that reflect on the multiple forms of housing insecurity that people were facing, this section highlights the forms of disparity that complicated pandemic responses. Moreover, this section underscores ingenuity (Graham 2019; Smith 2020; Jason and Fashant 2021) that people on the ground used to address the needs of their communities. The third section provides a snapshot from the first year of the pandemic into how CARES Act funds were allocated to Native Alaska communities and used to address housing security. This subject was extremely complicated in Alaska due to the existence of for-profit Alaska Native Corporations and disputes over eligibility for the funds impacted disbursements nationwide. The resources in this section cover that dispute, impacts of the pandemic on housing security, and efforts to use the funds for housing as well as barriers Alaska communities faced trying to secure and use the funds. In summary, this annotated bibliography provides an overview of what was happening, in real time, during the pandemic around a specific topic: housing security in largely remote Alaska Native communities. The media used by housing specialists to communicate the issues discussed here are diverse, ranging from news reports to podcasts and from blogs to journal articles. This diversity speaks to the multiple ways in which information was circulating on housing at a time when the nightly news and radio broadcasts focused heavily on national and state health updates and policy developments. Finding these materials took time, and we share them here because they illustrate why attention to housing security issues is critical for addressing crises like the pandemic. For instance, one theme that emerged out of a recent National Science Foundation workshop on COVID research in the North NSF Conference[4] was that Indigenous communities are not only recovering from the pandemic but also evaluating lessons learned to better prepare for the next one, and resilience will depend significantly on more—and more adaptable—infrastructure and greater housing security. 

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