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Peer assessment, as a form of collaborative learning, can engage students in active learning and improve their learning gains. However, current teaching platforms and programming environments provide little support to integrate peer assessment for in-class programming exercises. We identified challenges in conducting such exercises and adopting peer assessment through formative interviews with instructors of introductory programming courses. To address these challenges, we introduce PuzzleMe, a tool to help Computer Science instructors to conduct engaging in-class programming exercises. PuzzleMe leverages peer assessment to support a collaboration model where students provide timely feedback on their peers' work. We propose two assessment techniques tailored to in-class programming exercises: live peer testing and live peer code review. Live peer testing can improve students' code robustness by allowing them to create and share lightweight tests with peers. Live peer code review can improve code understanding by intelligently grouping students to maximize meaningful code reviews. A two-week deployment study revealed that PuzzleMe encourages students to write useful test cases, identify code problems, correct misunderstandings, and learn a diverse set of problem-solving approaches from peers.
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This content will become publicly available on March 25, 2026
Students as Partners in Teaching, Managing, and Developing Peer Learning in STEM Gateway Courses
Despite being the largest resource available to most campuses, students are seldom involved as active participants in institutional change efforts. Previous work suggests that peers are the number one resource for students, providing support and information regarding academic courses, as well as advice, help, and emotional support. This supportive resource can be formalized through undergraduate peer-learning roles like Learning Assistants (LAs) and Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL). These “Peer Coaches” partner with instructors to promote active engagement in service courses, typically undergoing some pedagogical training focused on facilitating student discussion. However, the partnership can be extended to include Peer Coaches as partners in curriculum development, program coordination, metacognitive mentoring, and feedback. In this way, rather than being treated as merely recipients of institutional change, students can partner actively with instructors to carry out, develop, and sustain institutional change. This article describes the various roles assumed by Peer Coaches as part of their involvement in an interdepartmental pedagogy course and how their efforts support broader institutional efforts to transform gateway STEM courses.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2013427
- PAR ID:
- 10626325
- Publisher / Repository:
- Routledge Taylor and Francis Group
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of College Science Teaching
- ISSN:
- 0047-231X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 9
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- peer learning PLTL LA students as partners institutional change
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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