The pivotal role of white-box testing with respect to software quality assurance, necessitates dissemination of education materials related to white-box testing in the course curriculum. In this poster, we describe our experiences in conducting an authentic learning based exercise related to white-box testing. From a conducted survey with 124 students, we observe the authentic learning-based exercise to be helpful for students to learn about white-box testing.
more »
« less
This content will become publicly available on March 14, 2025
Student Perceptions of Authentic Learning to Learn White-box Testing
The pivotal role of white-box testing with respect to software quality assurance, necessitates dissemination of education materials related to white-box testing in the course curriculum. In this poster, we describe our experiences in conducting an authentic learning-based exercise related to white-box testing. From a conducted survey with 124 students, we observe the authentic learning-based exercise to be helpful for students to learn about white-box testing.
more »
« less
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10508412
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
- ISBN:
- 9798400704246
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1784 to 1785
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- authentic learning white-box testing student perception
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Portland OR USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Despite yielding benefits for organizations, infrastructure as code (IaC) scripts are susceptible to security weaknesses, such as hard-coded passwords. Existence of such security weaknesses necessitate integration of education materials related to secure development of IaC scripts. In this preliminary work, we describe our experiences of how application of authentic learning helped students learn about secure development of IaC scripts. Our paper shows education materials based on authentic learning to help students learn about secure IaC development.more » « less
-
The primary goal of the authentic learning approach is to engage and motivate students in learning real world problem solving. We report our experience in developing k-nearest neighbor (KNN) classification for anomaly user behavior detection, one of the authentic machine learning for cybersecurity (ML4Cybr) learning modules based on 10 cybersecurity (CybrS) cases with machine learning (ML) solutions. All portable labs are made available on Google CoLab. So students can access and practice these hands-on labs anywhere and anytime without software installation and configuration which will engage students in learning concepts immediately and getting more experience for hands-on problem solving skills.more » « less
-
more » « less
Abstract Background Continuous calls for reform in science education emphasize the need to provide science experiences in lower-division courses to improve the retention of STEM majors and to develop science literacy and STEM skills for all students. Open or authentic inquiry and undergraduate research are effective science experiences leading to multiple gains in student learning and development. Most inquiry-based learning activities, however, are implemented in laboratory classes and the majority of them are guided inquiries. Although course-based undergraduate research experiences have significantly expanded the reach of the traditional apprentice approach, it is still challenging to provide research experiences to nonmajors and in large introductory courses. We examined student learning through a web-based authentic inquiry project implemented in a high-enrollment introductory ecology course for over a decade.
Results Results from 10 years of student self-assessment of learning showed that the authentic inquiry experiences were consistently associated with significant gains in self-perception of interest and understanding and skills of the scientific process for all students—both majors and nonmajors, both lower- and upper-division students, both women and men, and both URM and non-URM students. Student performance in evaluating the quality of an inquiry report, before and after the inquiry project, also showed significant learning gains for all students. The authentic inquiry experiences proved highly effective for lower-division students, nonmajors, and women and URM students, whose learning gains were similar to or greater than those of their counterparts. The authentic inquiry experiences were particularly helpful to students who were less prepared with regard to the ability to evaluate a scientific report and narrowed the performance gap.
Conclusions These findings suggest that authentic inquiry experiences can serve as an effective approach for engaging students in high-enrollment, introductory science courses. They can facilitate development of science literacy and STEM skills of all students, skills that are critical to students’ personal and professional success and to informed engagement in civic life.
-
Emergent Systems Microworlds (ESMs) are a special kind of computational models. Design of ESMs involves a combination of two approaches in Learning Sciences, namely agent-based modelling of complex systems and constructionism. ESMs and ESM-based curricula are frameworks for designing learning environments to foster the learning of complex scientific phenomena by engaging students in authentic scientific inquiry practices. In this paper, we discuss our approach in the context of an ESM called GenEvo that we designed for the learning of molecular genetics and evolution. We further discuss how agent-based representations and constructionist design principles mediated students’ expansive learning, as students collaboratively con- structed knowledge by engaging in authentic scientific inquiry practices.more » « less
