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To support teachers to implement Computer Science curricula into classrooms from the very first year of school, teachers, schools and organisations seek quality curriculum resources to support implementation and teacher professional development. Until now, many Computer Science resources and outreach initiatives have targeted K-12 school-age children, with the intention to engage children and increase interest, rather than to formally teach concepts and skills. What is the educational quality of existing Computer Science resources and to what extent are they suitable for classroom learning and teaching? In this paper, an assessment framework is presented to evaluate the quality of online Computer Science resources. Further, a semi-systematic review of available online Computer Science resources was conducted to evaluate resources available for classroom learning and teaching and to identify gaps in resource availability, using the Australian curriculum as a case study analysis. The findings reveal a predominance of quality resources, however, a number of critical gaps were identified. This paper provides recommendations and guidance for the development of new and supplementary resources and future research.

Computer Science (CS) curricula are being adopted worldwide. However, the lack of prior teaching training within this area means that we have an urgent need to provide teacher professional development. Best practice teacher professional development motivates us to construct interactive and sustainable models of professional development. However, there are challenges in doing this at the scale that we need and with the resources that are available. In this paper, we describe an ecosystem-based approach to supporting teacher professional development, aligned with best practices and with teachers' and schools' needs. An ecosystem approach operates under the coordination of a governance model, features a central hub and conceptualises the relationships of the organisations as a network. Ecosystems are underpinned by value co-creation, shared logic and can be non-geographical. We believe an ecosystem view of a teacher professional development program supports sustainability, authenticity and flexibility in how teachers engage with professional development, positioning teachers as co-contributors.

Context: It is common practice in academia to have students work with “toy” projects in software engineering (SE) courses. One way to make such courses more realistic and reduce the gap between academic courses and industry needs is getting students involved in open source projects (OSP) with faculty supervision. Objective: This study aims to summarize the literature on how OSP have been used to facilitate students’ learning of SE. Method: A systematic mapping study was undertaken by identifying, filtering and classifying primary studies using a predefined strategy. Results: 72 papers were selected and classified. The main results were: (a) most studies focused on comprehensive SE courses, although some dealt with specific areas; (b) the most prevalent approach was the traditional project method; (c) studies’ general goals were: learning SE concepts and principles by using OSP, learning open source software or both; (d) most studies tried out ideas in regular courses within the curriculum; (e) in general, students had to work with predefined projects; (f) there was a balance between approaches where instructors had either inside control or no control on the activities performed by students; (g) when learning was assessed, software artefacts, reports and presentations were the main instruments used by teachers, while surveys were widely used for students’ self-assessment; (h) most studies were published in the last seven years. Conclusions: The resulting map gives an overview of the existing initiatives in this context and shows gaps where further research can be pursued. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reviews contemporary research literature in the area of online computer science education that has emanated from Australasia. First the literature is summarized, initially categorized by content as relating to course design, assessment, collaboration, teaching, and learning through online environments. On the basis of the themes and approaches to research that emerge from the literature, a framework for analysing online learning literature is proposed. This framework is then used to identify open areas in online computer science education research, allowing an agenda for future work to be derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To support teachers to implement Computer Science curricula into classrooms from the very first year of school, teachers, schools and organisations seek quality curriculum resources to support implementation and teacher professional development. Until now, many Computer Science resources and outreach initiatives have targeted K-12 school-age children, with the intention to engage children and increase interest, rather than to formally teach concepts and skills. What is the educational quality of existing Computer Science resources and to what extent are they suitable for classroom learning and teaching? In this paper, an assessment framework is presented to evaluate the quality of online Computer Science resources. Further, a semi-systematic review of available online Computer Science resources was conducted to evaluate resources available for classroom learning and teaching and to identify gaps in resource availability, using the Australian curriculum as a case study analysis. The findings reveal a predominance of quality resources, however, a number of critical gaps were identified. This paper provides recommendations and guidance for the development of new and supplementary resources and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses the teaching and learning of computing in a Web-conferencing environment. A discourse analysis of three introductory programming learning episodes is presented to demonstrate issues and effects that arise when teaching computing using such an approach. The subject of discussion, the interactive nature of discussion and any actions performed by both the teacher and students were coded in order to determine how the approach to teaching impacted upon discourse. Student participation increased under student-centred approaches as the responsibility for the direction of curriculum-based discussion was devolved from the teacher to the students. However, teacher-led approaches incurred less of a collaborative overhead relating to coordinating activity between people and operating the technology. The data analysed and the approach adopted represent a subset of outputs from a PhD thesis investigating the teaching and learning of computer programming using Web-conferencing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reversing is the notion of thinking or working in reverse. Computer science textbooks and tutors recognize it primarily in the form of recursion. However, recursion is only one form of reversing. Reversing appears in the computer science curriculum in many other forms, at various intellectual levels, in a variety of fundamental courses. As such, it is too important a notion to be left unexplored. In this paper we discuss reversing in the context of two theoretical frameworks - as a fundamental idea in computer science, in the context of Schwill's model of fundamental ideas, and as a powerful problem solving means, in the context of Schoenfeld's cognitive model of problem solving. We recognize seven different forms of reversing, and demonstrate the essential role of each in algorithm or proof design. Our focus in the paper is conceptual, yet we briefly note our initial experimental experience, with student difficulties in both the invocation and utilization of reversing. We then discuss cognitive aspects of the teaching of reversing and offer ways to assimilate its awareness and elaborate its fundamental role in computer science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore how students used two resources, the in-class lecture and the online newsgroup, to write computer programs. By focusing on the questions students asked in each setting, we compare these two learning environments. Questions students asked during lecture typically related to the material the instructor was presenting. In contrast, questions posted to the newsgroup focused on the problems students encountered while programming. The responses posted to the newsgroup varied from providing syntax and resources to offering emotional support. We provide data that demonstrates that the newsgroup was an invaluable resource in this course as it supplied personalized, just-in-time help that allowed students to make progress on their programming assignments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contributing student pedagogy (CSP) builds upon social constructivist and community-based learning principles to create engaging and productive learning experiences. What makes CSP different from other, related, learning approaches is that it involves students both learning from and also explicitly valuing the contributions of other students. The creation of such a learning community builds upon established educational psychology that encourages deep learning, reflection and engagement. Our school has recently completed a review and update of its curriculum, incorporating student content-creation and collaboration into the design of key courses across the curriculum. Our experiences, based on several years of experimentation and development, support CSP-based curriculum design to reinforce the value of the student perspective, the clear description of their own transformative pathway to knowledge and the importance of establishing student-to-student networks in which students are active and willing participants. In this paper, we discuss the tools and approaches that we have employed to guide, support and structure student collaboration across a range of courses and year levels. By providing an account of our intentions, our approaches and tools, we hope to provide useful and transferrable knowledge that can be readily used by other academics who are considering this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Model-driven software development (MDSD) aims to support the development and evolution of software intensive systems using the basic concepts of model, metamodel, and model transformation. In parallel with the ongoing academic research, MDSD is more and more applied in industrial practices. After being accepted both by a broad community of researchers and the industry, it is now being introduced in university courses. This article describes the experiences of three years of teaching of the graduate course Model-Driven Software Development at Bilkent University in Turkey. The lessons learned can be useful for peer educators who teach or aim to teach a similar course. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Computer science is possibly one of the few remaining disciplines almost entirely dominated by men, especially university staff and in the hi-tech industries. This phenomenon prevails throughout the western world; in Israel it starts in high school, where only 30% of students who choose to take computer science as an elective are women, and continues in university and college, where usually less than 30% of the entire computer science student population is female. In this paper we present data describing women taking the undergraduate computer science program at the Open University of Israel. Covering a period of 10 years, we have examined the enrollment and results of thousands of students on 20 undergraduate computer science courses. An attempt has been made to identify whether there is a specific stage in the undergraduate program which is more difficult for women to pass. The good news is that within the Open University of Israel out of the entire population of computer science students the percentage of female enrolments and the percentage of females graduating is almost the same, and the differences in average final grade between men and women are generally not significant. This study is unique because of the large number of students which served as the study population, covering the entire undergraduate program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the Reinventing Computer Science Curriculum Project at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Motivated by rapid and significant changes in the information technology and computing areas, high diversity in student aptitudes, and high dropout rates, the project designed and implemented an integrated instructional/research framework. The framework is based around 10 general design strategies that incorporated administrative, instructional, and research principles. The framework consists of a placement examination, three suites of structured laboratory assignments, multimedia learning objects, and educational evaluation and research designs. The results of implementing the framework in our introductory courses are encouraging and insightful. While validating some of our designs, our research also identified areas for further development and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores what students taking an international project-based course in computer systems strive to learn. Through empirical, phenomenographic work we have identified three different motives that the students strive for: academic achievement; project and team working capacity; and social competence. What a student strives to learn largely influence the nature of her or his learning. Thus, the students can be thought of as taking different courses. Furthermore, the three motives can be experienced in different ways which can be more or less fruitful depending on what a student tries to achieve. We argue that it is important for a teacher to be aware of the variation in what the students want to learn, and to teach in a way that is cognizant of this spectrum of student goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introductory CS1 course presents problems for educators and students due to students' diverse background in programming knowledge and exposure. Students who enroll in CS1 also have different expectations and motivations. Prompted by the curricular guidelines for undergraduate programmes in computer science released in 2001 by the ACM/IEEE, and driven by a departmental project to reinvent the undergraduate computer science and computer engineering curricula at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, we are currently implementing a series of changes which will improve our introductory courses. One key component of our project is an online placement examination tied to the cognitive domain that assesses student knowledge and intellectual skills. Our placement test is also integrated into a comprehensive educational research design containing a pre- and posttest framework for assessing student learning and providing valuable feedback for needed instructional revisions. In this paper, we focus on the design and implementation of our placement exam and present an analysis of the data collected to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stated learning objectives for final year projects tend to be fairly generic. As a result, individual students' experience of project work will depend heavily on the attitudes and beliefs of their supervisor. This paper questions the purpose of projects in the computing curriculum and proposes a personal theory of teaching through projects. In deciding whether such a personal theory should emphasize disciplinary specific content or an experiential approach to learning we consider teaching and learning as a process of enculturation. The personal theory of teaching proposed envisages projects as an opportunity for students to engage in realistic activity which allows them to learn something of the nature of the discipline. The student may be thought of as being on a journey, while the supervisor takes the role of a guide pointing out alternatives along the route but allowing students ultimately to find their own way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors served on a committee that designed a high-school curriculum in computer science and has been supervising the preparation of a comprehensive study program based on it. The new program is intended for the Israeli high-school system, has been formally approved by the Ministry of Education, and is expected to fully replace the old one in the near future. The program emphasizes the foundations of algorithmics, and teaches programming as a way to get the computer to carry out an algorithm. The purpose of this paper is to describe the program's curriculum and syllabi in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial. Introduces articles about the pratical applications of projectworks in the Computer Science curriculum, published in the December 1999 issue of the periodical 'Computer Science Education.' Effectiveness of allocating students to groups based on personality profiles; Importance of industrial experience projects; Areas of projectwork which are not in the mainstream of higher education practice.

Computing in the Arts (CITA) is an interdisciplinary Bachelor of Arts degree program, which integrates computer science with art theory and practice. We present a 6-year study that explores the impact of the CITA degree on broadening participation. We find that CITA attracts a different student population than traditional computer science degrees. We find that it attracts and retains almost twice as many female students as a traditional computer science degree. Finally, we find that it graduates approximately equal numbers of female and male students. The CITA curriculum maintains its strong computer science character, as it contains several core computer science courses and traditional upper-level computer science courses. We introduce the CITA curriculum model, which combines computer science courses, art courses and several structured synthesis experiences. We show that creating a CITA-like degree is fairly inexpensive, as the curriculum mostly reuses existing courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a reflective analysis of an outreach programme called the Digital Divas Club. This curriculum-based programme was delivered in Australian schools with the aim of stimulating junior and middle school girls’ interest in computing courses and careers. We believed that we had developed a strong intervention programme based on previous literature and our collective knowledge and experiences. While it was coordinated by university academics, the programme content was jointly created and modified by practicing school teachers. After four years, when the final data were compiled, it showed that our programme produced significant change to student confidence in computing, but the ability to influence a desire to pursue a career path in computing did not fully eventuate. To gain a deeper insight in to why this may be the case, data collected from two of the schools are interrogated in more detail as described in this article. These schools were at the end of the expected programme outcomes. We found that despite designing a programme that delivered a multi-layered positive computing experience, factors beyond our control such as school culture and teacher technical self-efficacy help account for the unanticipated results. Despite our best laid plans, the expectations that this semester long programme would influence students’ longer term career outcomes may have been aspirational at best. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study addresses why women are underrepresented in Computer Science (CS). Data from 1319 American first-year college students (872 female and 447 male) indicate that gender differences in computer self-efficacy, stereotypes, interests, values, interpersonal orientation, and personality exist. If students had had a positive experience in their first CS course, they had a stronger intention to take another CS course. A subset of 128 students (68 females and 60 males) took a CS course up to one year later. Students who were interested in CS, had high computer self-efficacy, were low in family orientation, low in conscientiousness, and low in openness to experiences were more likely to take CS courses. Furthermore, individuals who were highly conscientious and low in relational-interdependent self-construal earned the highest CS grades. Efforts to improve women’s representation in CS should bear these results in mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study gathered data to serve as a benchmark of demographics of undergraduate students in game degree programs. Due to the high number of programs that are cross-disciplinary with computer science programs or that are housed in computer science departments, the data is presented in comparison to data from computing students (where available) and the US population. Participants included students studying games at four nationally recognized postsecondary institutions. The results of the study indicate that there is no significant difference between the ratio of men to women studying in computing programs or in game degree programs, with women being severely underrepresented in both. Women, blacks, Hispanics/Latinos, and heterosexuals are underrepresented compared to the US population. Those with moderate and conservative political views and with religious affiliations are underrepresented in the game student population. Participants agree that workforce diversity is important and that their programs are adequately diverse, but only one-half of the participants indicated that diversity has been discussed in any of their courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD) is not an easy subject to learn. There are many challenges confronting students when studying OOAD. Students have particular difficulty abstracting real-world problems within the context of OOAD. They are unable to effectively build object-oriented (OO) models from the problem domain because they essentially do not know “what” to model. This article investigates the difficulties and misconceptions undergraduate students have with analysing systems using unified modelling language analysis class and sequence diagrams. These models were chosen because they represent important static and dynamic aspects of the software system under development. The results of this study will help students produce effective OO models, and facilitate software engineering lecturers design learning materials and approaches for introductory OOAD courses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is changing the way we build, operate, and maintain our software-intensive systems. Several projects using MDE practices are reporting significant improvements in quality and performance but, to be able to handle these projects, software engineers need a set of technical and interpersonal skills that are currently not widely available. The MDE postgraduate diploma intends to fill this gap by offering a full-time one year formation onMDE. The course syllabus is designed to teach students how to work at a higher abstraction level by the rigorous use of (software) models as the main artifacts in all software engineering activities. Contents include the conceptual framework of MDE plus all techniques and tools (e.g. for defining modeling languages, models, and model transformations) required to successfully complete software engineering projects following a MDE approach. The organizational impact (and challenges) of adopting MDE are exemplified using real industrial experiences. This article describes the MDE Diploma and the lessons that we learned after completing its first edition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we surveyed literature related to undergraduate computer science capstone courses. The survey was organized around course and project issues. Course issues included: course models, learning theories, course goals, course topics, student evaluation, and course evaluation. Project issues included: software process models, software process phases, project type, documentation, tools, groups, and instructor administration. We reflected on these issues and thecomputer science capstone course we have taught for seven years. The survey summarized, organized, and synthesized the literature to provide a referenced resource for computer science instructors and researchers interested in computer science capstone courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores factors that contribute to low participation rates in computing and information technology (CIT) courses in senior secondary school, particularly for females. Partly drawing on the Values-Expectancy Theory the following variables are explored separately and within a single model: gender, ability and values beliefs, access and use at home and at school. As well as presenting results consistent with current literature, an inclusive and eclectic model is developed. The model indicates that, in addition to gender and the student's beliefs about the value of the subjects, plans to take CIT subjects are also affected by the amount of use of IT at school. These school-related factors are inter-connected either directly or indirectly with students' beliefs about their IT abilities at both schooland home, as well as the amount of use at home. For educators who seek to improve participation rates, particularly for females, theidentification of school-related variables is encouraging, as the school - unlike the home - is a relatively accessible site of intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a holistic approach to designing an introductory, object-oriented programming course. The design is grounded in constructivism and pedagogy of phenomenography. We use constructive alignment as the framework to align assessments, learning, and teaching with planned learning outcomes. We plan learning and teaching activities, and media with an understanding of variation theory and the ways in which students learn to program. We outline the implementation of the course, and discuss the findings from the first cycle of an action research study with a small sample of undergraduate students. An investigation of the preferred (deep/surface) learning approaches of the students led us to believe that these approaches can be influenced through course design. Personal constructs of the students, elicited through the repertory grid technique, revealed that rich inventories of learning resources are highly valued. We comment on the transformational processes of the experience of the participants, and identify areas for further refinement and investigation in the next action research cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an innovative pedagogical approach that we call constructive evaluation, which shifts students from being consumers of knowledge to participants in a community of peers engaged in actively producing and sharing knowledge. Students are required to author a question that assesses one or more of the learning outcomes of a course. In addition to the question, students write a sample solution. These questions and solutions are stored in a question item bank where they become available for other students to use as a learning resource. Once a student answers a question from the item bank, they can see how other students have answered the question and can reflect on their own response. Additionally, students must review the questions they have answered and are given an opportunity to engage in discussion of questions or answers via a feedback mechanism. In addition to improving content knowledge, students develop important meta-skills such as organising and communicating knowledge; judging the quality of information; giving and receiving feedback and improving self-assessment skills. This approach is aligned with both reflective professional practice and social theories of learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Project MLeXAI (Machine Learning eXperiences in Artificial Intelligence (AI)) seeks to build a set of reusable course curriculum and hands on laboratory projects for the artificial intelligence classroom. In this article, we describe two game-based projects from the second phase of project MLeXAI: Robot Defense - a simple real-time strategy game and Checkers - a classic turn-based board game. From the instructors' prospective, we examine aspects of design and implementation as well as the challenges and rewards of using the curricula. We explore students' responses to the projects via the results of a common survey. Finally, we compare the student perceptions from the game-based projects to non-game based projects from the first phase of Project MLeXAI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A national web-based survey was administered to 700 undergraduate computer science (CS) programs in the United States as part of a stratified random sample of 797 undergraduate CS programs. The 251 program responses (36% response rate) regarding social and professional issues are presented. This article describes the demographics of the respondents, presents results concerning whether programs teach social and professional issues, how social and professional issues are integrated, perceptions of CS faculty regarding the importance of social and professional issues, pedagogies used to teach social and professional issues, and what specific social and professional topics have been included in the CS curriculum. Additionally, we (a) provide suggestions for CS programs regarding the integration of social and professional issues into the CS curriculum, (b) suggest ways to encourage more social and professional coverage in CS programs, pedagogy, and (c) recommend what social and professional topics should be included in future CS curriculum reports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As computing makes the world a smaller place there will be an increase in the mobility of information technology workers and companies. The European Union has recognized the need for mobility and is instituting educational reforms to provide recognition of worker qualifications. Within computing there have been a number of model curricula proposed in Europe and in the United States. This analysis of these curriculum models and example computing programs finds that in computing worker mobility is also possible across the Atlantic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SystemC is a system-level design and simulation language based on C++. We've been using SystemC for computer organization and design projects for the past several years. Because SystemC is embedded in C++ it contains the powerful abstraction mechanisms of C++ not found in traditional hardware description languages, such as support for object-oriented programming and generic programming (templates). This support for abstraction allows instructors to reinforce standard abstraction concepts such as information hiding, interfaces, and abstract data types, standard fare in a computer science curriculum. Furthermore, embedded software is often written in C++ and SystemC provides threading facilities useful for designing and implementing embedded software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the needs of students who, in the past, may have chosen to major in computer science or some other aspect of information technology as a way of achieving the goal of finding a job in the computer graphics field. Comparison of two extant Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Graphics; Importance of creating an interdisciplinary undergraduate computer graphics degree.

Engineers often work together with professionals from entirely different areas. Therefore, it is important for the engineers to understand enough of these other areas, where technology is used, to obtain good results. To this aim a term has been developed within the civil engineering curriculum in information technology at Linköpings universitet, where the students work and study together with students from the psychology and economics education programs. The information technology and economics students build companies together and perform a project. The psychology students act as consultants for the different companies. Subjects from six departments are integrated into the project. The students work and study together for different parts of the project, although the learning goals differ between the different programs. The cooperation in the project leads to a transfer of information and knowledge between the students. Experience also suggests that the students obtain a better motivation and an integrated view of technology and the other areas as a result of the integrated project. The learning method also promotes cooperation and understanding between different professional cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article summarizes the results of designing, class-testing, and developing teaching materials (texts, laboratory manuals, and software) for a novel introductory curriculum in computer science known as the "breadth-first curriculum." This curriculum covers the first four one-semester courses in an undergraduate computer science major, and has been class-tested in several colleges of science, engineering, and liberal arts. It differs fundamentally from the traditional model because it emphasizes breadth of discipline coverage, regular structured laboratory experiences, incorporation of theory, and inclusion of the social context as essential parts of each course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article suggests a list of software engineering topics appropriate for the introductory computer science courses, CS-1 and CS-2. Teaching issues arising from the incorporation of this material include course, project and team organization and activities. Many of the ideas noted here have been applied successfully in our CS-2 class at the University of Texas at Austin. Descriptions of sample projects and courses from the literature illustrate ways other faculty have integrated these approaches. Problem areas such as course organization and handling team problems are discussed and a bibliography of resources is included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]