CSE 492T, Autumn 2020: Schedule

Meet each other; discuss course procedures, themes, and topics; reflect on our roles in education

Reading: Chapter 16 of The Cambridge Handbook of Computing Education Research by Colleen Lewis, Niral Shah, Katrina Faulkner

Discussion Prompts:

• In your own words, define diversity, equity, access, and justice.
• Which of the vignettes did you find most compelling? Why?
• Give one or two ideas or tools you identified in the chapter that you can apply to your own teaching. (If you are not currently teaching, think about a future opportunity.)
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Reading: Ethics, Identity, and Political Vision: Toward a Justice-Centered Approach to Equity in Computer Science Education by Sepehr Vakil

Discussion Prompts:

• Do you agree with Vakil's three pillars of justice-centered CS education (ethics in curriculum, identity in classrooms, and political vision)? What do you see as the pros and cons of this framing?
• What can we glean from Vakil's examples of progress that we can apply at UW or in other programs you have experience with?
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Reading: How Professors Develop as Teachers by Peter Kugel

Discussion Prompts:

• Does Kugel's framework make sense to you? Does it seem to fit with your observations of your teachers/professors and/or with your sense of your own development? What might you change about the framework?
• Which stage do you think most of your professors at UW have been in when you learned from them? Which stage do you think you are currently in?
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Reading: Sections 1.2-1.3 of Learner-centered design of computing education: Research on computing for everyone by Mark Guzdial

Reading: Teaching Perspectives Inventory

Discussion Prompts:

• Which of the motivations for Computing for All that Guzdial outlines do you find most compelling? Are there any that he did not include that you think are important?
• Which Teaching Perspective did you most closely align with? Did this surprise you? Why or why not?
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Reading: Chapter 6 of How Learning Works II

Discussion Prompts:

• Which element(s) of learner motivation mentioned in the report did you find most interesting? Why?
• How have your learning experiences and motivation been influenced your teachers? How do you think you have influenced the motivations of your students when you have been a teacher (if you have)?
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Reflect on the topics we have discussed so far and consider how they could impact and be put to use in our own teaching

Review our notes and thoughts from our first observation and consider what we can learn to improve our own practice from the observation

Discussion Prompts:

• What did you observe that you would like to emulate or adopt in your own teaching?
• What did you observe that you would like to avoid or modify in your own teaching?

Reading: Chapter 9 of The Cambridge Handbook of Computing Education Research by Anthony Robins, Lauren Margulieux, Briana Morrison

Discussion Prompts:

• Which cognitive science concept, idea, or theory from the chapter did you find most interesting? Which did you think could be most useful in your teaching? Why?
• How do you think the concept of transfer manifests in computer science? What did you learn about transfer that might be relevant for your teaching?
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Reading: Chapter 1 of Understanding By Design by Grant Wiggins, Jay McTighe

Discussion Prompts:

• Do you agree with the authors' descriptions of the advantages of backwards design and the drawbacks of the traditional design process? Why or why not?
• What evidence of good course design (backwards or otherwise) have you seen in classes you've taken and/or taught? What evidence of flawed design have you noticed?
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Reading: Bloom's taxonomy revisited: specifying assessable learning objectives in computer science by Christopher Starr, Bill Manaris, RoxAnn Stalvey

Discussion Prompts:

• Which level(s) of Bloom's Taxonomy do you think most of your courses (especially your CS or related courses) have focused on? What do you think this means for your mastery of the content from those courses?
• How could Bloom's Taxonomy be useful in applying the backwards design process from our last reading?
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Reading: Formative and Summative Assessment in the Classroom by Dante Dixson, Frank Worrell

Discussion Prompts:

• In your own words, how would you define "formative assessment" and "summative assessment"? What role do you think each serves?
• What are some of the the best and worst examples of formative and summative assessment you have seen in your classes? How effective do you think they were at assessing the relevant learning objectives?
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Reading: Grades versus comments: Research on student feedback by Thomas Guskey

Discussion Prompts:

• How would you describe the purpose of grades in your experience? Who do you think grades are for? How might grading processes change based on the intended audience?
• What do you think of the advice for effective feedback outlined on page 6? Has feedback you've given and/or received followed these guidelines?
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Reading: Grading for equity episode of The Harvard EdCast

Discussion Prompts:

• What do you see as the biggest threats to equity in grading practices at UW, especially in CSE? What types of students do you think are harmed by these inequities?
• Do you agree with Feldman's proposals for making grading more equitable (not grading homework, not grading behavior, not averaging grades across a term, etc.)? What drawbacks or barriers to implementing these proposals do you think could exist? (Feel free to focus on one or two specific ideas.)
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Reflect on what we have discussed so far, along with the results of our observations, and consider how we can utilize what we have learned to improve our own teaching

Discussion Prompts:

• What did you observe that you would like to emulate or adopt in your own teaching?
• What did you observe that you would like to avoid or modify in your own teaching?

Reading: Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics by Scott Freeman et. al.

Discussion Prompts:

• How do you define active learning? What are some examples you've seen or heard of?
• What do you think are the barriers to implementing active learning in more CS classes? What are the risks?
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Reading: Experience report: peer instruction in introductory computing by Beth Simon, Michael Kohanfars, Jeff Lee, Karen Tamayo, Quintin Cutts

Reading: Peer instruction: do students really learn from peer discussion in computing? by Leo Porter, Cynthia Lee, Beth Simon, Daniel Zingaro

Discussion Prompts:

• What do you see as the benefits of Peer Instruction? What are some barriers to using it in CS classes?
• What do you think of the discussion of isomorphic questions in the 2011 ICER paper? Do you agree with the conclusions that isomorphic questions can provide additional insight into student understanding? How could you envision utilizing isomorphic questions in your own teaching?
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Reading: Empirical Studies of Pair Programming for CS/SE Teaching in Higher Education: A Systematic Literature Review by Norsaremah Salleh, Emilia Mendes, John C. Grundy

Discussion Prompts:

• What are your thoughts on the measures of effectiveness the paper describes? Do you think this analysis (and the research it was analyzing) looked at the right factors to determine whether PP was effective?
• What factors do you think are most important in choosing partners for pair programming? Do you think these factors change if partners are assigned vs. if students are allowed to choose their own?
• What potential equity issues do you see in implementing pair programming? What are some ways these concerns could be mitigated?
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Reading: Reducing withdrawal and failure rates in introductory programming with subgoal labeled worked examples by Lauren Margulieux, Briana Morrison, Adrienne Decker

Discussion Prompts:

• Have you encountered worked examples and/or subgoal labels in your own educational experiences (either as a student or a teacher)? If so, how effective did you find them? If not, what are some times they could have been useful?
• What do you make of the fact that subgoal labels led to higher performance initially, but not in the long term? How do you weigh those results against the other results the authors found (such as decrease dropout rates and lower variance in scores)?
• What questions or concerns do you have about this reading?

Think back over all the material we have covered and reflect on what concrete actions or ideas we would like to begin to incorporate into our teaching

Discussion Prompts:

• What ideas and concepts did you find most interesting and/or useful from this quarter?
• What questions or concerns do you still have about topics we discussed, oor about equitable pedagogy in general?
• What ideas do you have for how you will change your teaching practices going forward based on what we have learned?