Note to self

Layman, Lucas; Williams, Laurie; Slaten, Kelli M.

doi:10.1145/1227310.1227466

Cited by 45 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…In closer relation to our work, some studies have looked at ways of increasing retention with changes to in-classroom activities and extracurricular activities [2,10,29,30,32,35]. Some researchers and educators have looked specifically into improving retention through computing assignments: Layman et al [24] looked at ways of making assignments more meaningful (aiding or producing value to society) to students, Bouvier et al [8] discussed the effect of context in assignment descriptions, and Zeitz and Anewalt [39] looked at designing assignments to increase students' awareness of diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 95%

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Computing Educational Activities Involving People Rather Than Things Appeal More to Women (CS1 Appeal Perspective)

Marcher

Christensen

Grabarczyk

et al. 2021

Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research

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Prior research on recruitment of women to computing has established that computing tasks involving People rather than Things have been perceived as much more appealing by female high-school students (potentially recruitable as university computing students). This paper changes the focus from prospective to current university students and presents the results of a new experiment that advances and moves beyond earlier research in two crucial respects. First of all, the participants of the experiment are N=152 university students, who already study computing, rather than general highschool students. Second of all, the choice between a People-themed versus an isomorphic Things-themed version of an educational task now pertains to real (in fact, mandatory) assignments that the students had to perform, rather than hypothetical tasks. The change of experimental context, design, and methodology allows us to complement previous findings related to recruitment with suggestions significant for computing educational activities. The overall findings of the new experiment are consistent with that of the previous one. We find that, also at university, there is a visible preference for choosing People themed over Things themed computing tasks amongst women. The results also expose considerable variation between tasks in the effect of gender observed. At the same time, male students, in general, seem to be either indifferent to the themes or to slightly prefer People versions. This suggests that educators should consider favoring People themed assignments over ones involving Things.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Designing curricula that relate to the "real world" and have an impact on society is mentioned in several studies [24,29,38]. It is important to note, however, that the People perspective is not the same as relating to society.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computing Educational Activities Involving People Rather Than Things Appeal More to Women (CS1 Appeal Perspective)

Marcher

Christensen

Grabarczyk

et al. 2021

Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research

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show abstract

“…In computer science, the notion of "nifty" problems adds some other aspects of good problems (Layman, Williams, & Slaten, 2007). Such problems also meet four criteria, they are: (a) playful, fun, or interesting; (b) topical (fitting into standard curricula); (c) scalable (i.e.…”

Section: How Do Problems Support Learning?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In physics, there is a huge emphasis on building simplified models from which theoretical generalizations can be made (Hestenes, 1987;Brewe, 2008). Computer science centers on developing programs, so debugging and programming are key parts of the problem-solving process (Layman et al, 2007). In engineering, building solutions to real-world problems is the goal, so there is a focus on designing, prototyping, testing, and refining (Ikonen, Piironen, Saurén, & Lankinen, ISSN:2149-8504 (online) 2009).…”

Section: Are the Stem Disciplines All The Same?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Good Problems within and Across Disciplines

Reinholz¹,

Slominski²,

French³

et al. 2018

J-STEM

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This paper focuses on the question of what makes a good disciplinary or interdisciplinary problem. We draw from literature across the STEM disciplines and two conference sessions to provide insight into what makes a good problem within a specific discipline and across the disciplines. We use various frameworks to analyze a variety of problems that were nominated as exemplars by STEM education research experts. Common features identified include real-world connections, reinforcement of conceptual understanding, a low floor and high ceiling, multiple solutions paths, and building dispositions of professionals in the discipline. While a good problem need not have all of these features, in general, good problems have more of these features. We also recognize that these problems are context-specific, as what may be considered a problem for one learner could be a trivial exercise for another. We discuss some of the challenges of designing good interdisciplinary problems and identify some features that can make a problem interdisciplinary, including use of cross-cutting concepts and drawing on the specific expertise of each discipline.

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“…They found that teachers who communicate a mix of policy styles (e.g., voluntary attendance & no assignment choices or mandatory attendance & assignment choices) may be obstructing individual initiations to participate in class and decrease positive views of value toward the class among students. Several other researchers also investigated ways to increase student motivation by giving students a choice in their class assignments [21,22,23]. Overall, there is a mixed set of findings in the literature on positive and negative effects of giving students some level of choice related to their assignments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%