CSE 142: Computer Programming I, Winter 2016

Practicum: guided programming practice

Here at UWCSE, over the last couple quarters, we've developed a tool for students to learn and practice certain types of structured, algorithmic problems. It's a distant cousin of PracticeIt, and also of the 190 labs -- all of them are intended to provide additional and different ways for you, the student, to better learn the course material (on top of section, the textbook, and the homework assignments). Practicum is targeted at providing more explanations to you while you are learning, and providing less explanations to you as you gain experience solving each type of problem.

• Practicum

Practicum is under active development. If you have feedback or suggestions, please use the links in the tool to give us feedback. It can be about the user interface, the problem-solving workflow, or anythnig else that you like or don't like about the tool.

Practicum Experiment in 16wi

This quarter, we're running an experiment to determine if it the new tool is helpful. The experiment works as follows:

Practicum is available to all students in the course, and it's use is encouraged in the 190 labs. All users are assigned to one of several treatment groups. Your experimental treatment determines how quickly the tool chooses to make you try the problem on their own; that is, how quickly the tool hides the hints, and makes the user perform steps with limited instruction. The goal is for you to know the steps to solve a problem without a prompt.

Consent Form

During the lab, or when you visit the Practicum page, you will encounter a consent form screen. This consent form contains the researchers statement; please read it and respond to it. You can change you consent decision at any time by clicking your username in the top right-hand corner of the screen in Practicum, and selecting 'Consent Form'.

Note that whether you agree or disagree to the consent form does not affect the lab material that you will use; nor does it affect whether you are allowed to use Practicum.

The consent form also does not control what data we collect. By virtue of taking the course, you are agreeing to allow us to collect some data -- for example, we collect your assignment scores so that we can compute course grades at the end of the term. We also collect usage data from the various tools we use and use that internally to improve the tools, and also improve our courses; to be clear, we don't share this data with anyone, we simply use it to administer the course and improve the way we teach it.

The consent form controls whether the researchers may use and share your anonymized data in a research study regarding the effectiveness of this new tool, Practicum.

Your anonymized data is likely to include your:

• homework and exam scores,
• attendance information,
• demographics,
• and Practicum usage data.

Your anonymized data will NOT include:

• your name,
• your email address,
• your student number,
• your uwnetid,
• or any other personally identifiable piece of data.

You can only respond to the consent form in the Practicum tool, but you can view a copy of the consent form text here.

Contact Info

If you have any questions about the research study, you should contact the researchers:

• Eleanor O'Rourke, Computer Science & Engineering, eorourke@cs.washington.edu, (413) 259-7352
• Eric Butler, Computer Science & Engineering, edbutler@cs.washington.edu, (724) 355-7904
• Aaron Bauer, Computer Science & Engineering, awb@cs.washington.edu, (206) 348-3268

If you have questions about your rights as a research subject, you should contact:

• UW Human Subjects Division at (206) 543-0098

If you have other questions regarding Practicum, you may contact:

• Whitaker Brand, Intro Tech Staff whitab@cs.uw.edu, (360) 433-8477
• the instructor
• your TA