Although studies have shown Peer Instruction (PI) in computing courses to be beneficial for learning and retention, study of the student experience has been limited to attitudinal survey results. This study provides a preliminary evaluation of student experiences in a PI course -specifically asking them to reflect on their role as a student in a PI lecture compared to a standard university lecture. Student responses to this question are first analyzed using Chi's Interactive-Constructive-Active-Passive framework which categorizes student activities by their value in a constructivist learning framework. This analysis finds that the majority of students reported activity in a PI lecture as "interactive" in contrast with "active" (e.g. taking notes) in a standard lecture. Additionally, a grounded theory open-coding analysis provides an initial examination of student perceptions of the PI lecture experience. Although students positively value learning-related aspects (feedback and increased understanding) a surprising breadth of value was noted around issues of affect and increased sense of community. In particular, these experiences invite discussion about PI and issues of STEM retention in postsecondary education.

Traditionally, computer science education research contributes new tools, techniques, and theories to improve institutionalized learning spaces -e.g. classrooms. However, we take the position that the study and improvement of computer science learning spaces outside the classroom are just as important.We take a step toward illuminating the critical qualities of noninstitutional computer science learning spaces by engaging in a grounded-theoretical examination of first-hand accounts of noninstitutional learning. To further study the topic, we attempted to recreate (in the lab) a learning environment with many qualities that characterize non-institutional learning.To make this possible, we employed a modified version of CodeSpells -a video game designed to teach Java programming in a way that engenders the sense of sustained, playful, creative exploration driven entirely by the learner. This study introduced 40 girls, ages 10 to 12, to programming for the first time. We use the results of both studies to develop a theoretical framework which we use to examine existing tools such as Scratch, Alice, and educational games in a new light.

This paper addresses how CodeSpells uses the metaphor of wizardry, along with an embodied API to engage students in learning to program in Java. Giving novice programmers a concrete representation of code has been encouraged and shown to help students understand the concepts with more ease. There have been many attempts to improve the novice learning experience by providing: a visual programming language, a hardware component or an application that is more approachable. The benefit of this research is that students are better able to understand how abstract code effects the environment.We build on this work through CodeSpells by immersing novices in the abstraction of code through embodiment to allow them to understand complex and abstract programming problems as if they were being affected by what they wrote. In this paper we present a new approach to novice programming environments, one that embodies the user and encourages a quick grasp of introductory concepts followed by a deep understanding through exploration.

K-12 Computer Science Education has been an increasingly popular topic worldwide. Additionally, with K-12 standardized testing moving online, students are being required to improve their computer skills, which, among other factors, has also motivated the discussion to add computer science to the core curriculum [6,8,35,22]. Educational programming languages, such as Scratch [25] and Alice [11], have a set of features that foster their use with younger students [27] such as drag-and-drop, limited API, and visual output. Given that novices can be introduced to such educational languages with a basic understanding of computer science concepts, industry-standard programming languages like Java can now be introduced to younger students.This paper re-introduces CodeSpells [14,13,15], a 3D immersive video game that is unique in that it attempts to engage students in introductory computing concepts in similar ways to Scratch/Alice, but using Java, while providing them a metaphor of wizardry that attempts to mimic the culture of computer science.CodeSpells has been shown to engage students in confidently writing Java code, but it has yet been shown to result in students being able to write Java code, or begin to become computer scientists. In this paper, we show the results of an 8-week study conducted on 55 9-10 year old students across two different schools. Throughout the study, students not only played CodeSpells, but also used a guided workbook to explore Java code outside of the CodeSpells virtual environment. Through both immersive interactions and the guided workbook, students demonstrated their understanding of introductory computing concepts and their ability to program in Java, both on the computer, and on paper.

The abstraction transition taxonomy: developing desired learning outcomes through the lens of situated cognition. In: Clear, A., Sanders, K. {sesper, srfoster, mfecho, bsimon}@cs.ucsd.edu ABSTRACTWe report on a post-hoc analysis of introductory programming lecture materials. The purpose of this analysis is to identify what knowledge and skills we are asking students to acquire, as situated in the activity, tools, and culture of what programmers do and how they think. The specific materials analyzed are the 133 Peer Instruction questions used in lecture to support cognitive apprenticeship -honoring the situated nature of knowledge. We propose an Abstraction Transition Taxonomy for classifying the kinds of knowing and practices we engage students in as we seek to apprentice them into the programming world. We find students are asked to answer questions expressed using three levels of abstraction: English, CS Speak, and Code. Moreover, many questions involve asking students to transition between levels of abstraction within the context of a computational problem. Finally, by applying our taxonomy in classifying a range of introductory programming exams, we find that summative assessments (including our own) tend to emphasize a small range of the skills fostered in students during the formative/apprenticeship phase.