The impact of real-world topic labs on student performance in CS1

Changing a Generation’s Way of Thinking: Teaching Computational Thinking Through Programming

“…The second category was named Relatable Content and Contextualization. This one included (a) Media Computation in which design, audio, and web page programs are used to facilitate teaching programming (Tew, Fowler, & Guzdial, 2005); (b) Real-World Projects in which a set of lab exercises based on real-world problems are used by the teacher with the class (De La Mora & Reilly, 2012); and (c) Courses involving games in which using game maker platforms students are encouraged to design a game as desired (Rankin, Gooch, & Gooch, 2008).…”

An examination of mathematics preparation for and progress through three introductory computer science courses

“…In the past, we have implemented efforts to improve student performance by engaging students through interesting programming assignments [5], providing frequent feedback to students by having a short quiz after each unit instead of only having three exams throughout the semester, and by encouraging students to see the instructor and teaching assistants for individual help, among other efforts. This paper differs from those prior efforts by focusing on the preparation of students before they enter our introductory course pipeline, and on the progress of students through the pipeline.…”