Abstract-Giving students extra credit work is a hotly debated pedagogical issue. This paper shares experience of using extra credit quizzes to push students to think critically and beyond the boundaries. This particular type of quizzes are not announced before and presented to students as a surprise quiz. A certain percentage of the grade earned in these quizzes was included in student"s final grade calculations. With a well-developed model of questions, quiz structure and grade calculation, the presented model of extra credit eliminates negativity related to extra credit work and also motivates students into course work. Our findings showed that by relieving students from the mental pressure of test taking and by making those tests/quizzes as extra credit; students actually performs better in solving harder problems and eventually learns more of the advanced course topics.

Recursion is one of the most powerful problemsolving techniques in computer science, but many students seem to struggle with the concept of recursion. In addition, the instructors find it hard to teach this concept using traditional teaching method. This paper presents a game module titled "Recursive Runner" that aims to reinforce student understanding of recursion in a game. Four undergraduate students developed the game with GameMaker Studio in three months. The game was designed for short gameplay time and it does not require any prior experience in gaming. The objective of the game is to provide the students with a fun environment to visualize and follow the flow of execution of recursive functions. This paper presents the game design and implementation in detail and shares our experiences in using this module in the CSC1311 Computer Programming II and CSC2331 Data Structures classes at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU). A pretest, a posttest and a survey were developed and used in the evaluation process. In addition, a lab assignment was designed to use with the game to evaluate student understanding of the concept. Initial assessment outcomes show promising results and the feedback is positive according to the survey and interview.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract