Over the past decades, computer science educators have developed a multitude of interactive learning resources to support learning in various computer science domains, especially in introductory programming. While such smart content items are known to be beneficial, they are frequently offered through different login-based systems, each with its own student identification for giving credits and collecting log data. As a consequence, using more than one kind of smart learning content is rarely possible, due to overhead for both teachers and students caused by adopting and using several systems in the context of a single course. In this paper, we present a general purpose architecture for integrating multiple kinds of smart content into a single system. As a proof of this approach, we have developed the Python Grids practice system for learning Python, which integrates four kinds of smart content running on different servers across two continents. The system has been used over a whole semester in a large-scale introductory programming course to provide voluntary practice content for over 600 students. In turn, the ability to offer four kinds of content within a single system enabled us to examine the impact of using a variety of smart learning content on students’ studying behavior and learning outcomes. The results show that the majority of students who used the system were engaged with all four types of content, instead of only engaging with one or two types. Moreover, accessing multiple types of content correlated with higher course performance, as compared to using only one type of content. In addition, weekly practice with the system during the course also correlated with better overall course performance, rather than using it mainly for preparing for the course final examination. We also explored students’ motivational profiles and found that students using the system had higher levels of motivation than those who did not use the system. We discuss the implications of these findings.
This research is focused on how to support students' acquisition of program construction skills through worked examples. Although examples have been consistently proven to be valuable for student's learning, the learning technology for computer science education lacks program construction examples with interactive elements that could engage students. The goal of this work is to investigate the value of the "engaging" features in programming examples. We introduce PCEX, an online tool developed to present program construction examples in an engaging fashion. We also present the results of a controlled study with a between-subject design that was conducted in a large introductory Python programming class to compare PCEX with non-interactive worked examples focused on program construction. The results of our study show the positive impact of interactive program construction examples on student's engagement, problem-solving performance, and learning.
E-books including interactive elements are rapidly becoming more popular and are likely to largely replace traditional textbooks at university level education. In this paper, we report our initial observations on the changes we noticed in students' motivational factors and learning results when a static PDF textbook was replaced by an interactive e-textbook in a large CS1 service course. We found increase in both motivational factors, as well as learning gain. In addition, students' feedback on the learning resources improved. While the changes were not large, they encourage to continue integrating more interactive learning content into course learning environment.
We present an indexing system where a datahuse index is divided into two parts: the main index locuted 011 disk ar7d the diflerential index in the niaitl memory. Both indices ire implemented as B-trees. ,411 updales perfornied by active transuctions are writteri in the dfferential index. Periodically, writes of committed transactions are transferred from differential index to the main index as a batch-update o p eration. Thus, updates falling into the strtne leaf of the ti-ee can be performed .siniultaneousIy. In addition, the system offers a simple recovering scheme. Afrer a systenz crash, no iindo operations are needed und redo operations need only write to the muin meniory.
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