The Impact of COVID-19 on the CS Student Learning Experience

Abstract

Students have experienced incredible shifts in their learning environments, brought about by the response of universities to the ever-changing public health mandates driven by waves and stages of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). Initially, these shifts in learning (mode of course delivery, course availability, etc.) were considered emergency responses. However, as the pandemic pressed on, students have had to repeatedly adapt to the continuously evolving educational landscape.This working group builds upon foundations and structure created by a 2021 ITiCSE Working Group exploring the effects of COVID-19 on teaching and learning from a faculty perspective. That working group identified the incorporation of some pandemicinduced changes into future teaching practices. This working group examines the existing literature and insights gained from responses to a multi-national survey to explore the new student experience emerging from the continuously evolving teaching practices catalyzed by the global pandemic.Traditionally, computing is a subject full of experiential learning opportunities, rich with in-person labs and exercises. We investigate how the changes within the COVID-affected academic landscape have altered that student experience. The current group of computing students will have had experiences under both typical (i.e. pre-pandemic) and COVID-affected teaching practices. It is, therefore, timely that we understand how each has impacted how they perceive their learning environment and educational experience.

Students and Instructors Reflections on the Impact of COVID-19 on Computer Science Education after One Year of Remote Teaching

“…Numerous voices from the educational community are calling to preserving the new options offered during distance learning and move toward more student-centered pedagogy [34][35][36][37][38][39]. Looking specifically at the CS landscape, Crick et al in [40] reported some students' interest toward post-pandemic online learning, although students in their study were also acutely aware of the risks, such as social isolation, and overall indicated preference toward including at least some face-to-face course activities.…”

Arguments for and Approaches to Computing Education in Undergraduate Computer Science Programmes

“…Furthermore, as suggested by some of our interviewees, identifying core elements everyone should be learning and starting to characterise a subject-specific pedagogy would significantly contribute to the acceptance of CE in the context(s) of undergraduate CS programmes. Perhaps these types of changes will be increasingly feasible and tractable in a world in which we are trying to better understand the emerging impact and ramifications of generative AI [41,91] as part of a post-COVID "new normal" [23,27], where there is a renewed focus on high-quality learning, teaching and assessment, and specifically what this means for effective pedagogy and practice in CS and CE [106,107]. Ultimately, we hope that an open international community of practice will form around this work.…”

La interacción social de aula y el apoyo pedagógico en la formación remota de estudiantes escolares

“…Esto es aún más limitado cuando la experiencia de interacción es desde modos tradicionales, como videoconferencias en la pasividad del estudiante, es decir, centrado más en la enseñanza que en el aprendizaje. Esta situación suele ocurrir cuando no se adapta de forma efectiva la tecnología con estrategias didácticas contextualizadas para que el estudiante sea protagonista de su proceso de aprendizaje (Abreu, 2020;Siegel et al 2022).…”