An Asynchronous Learning Network Tool For Improving CS Education and Retention Rates

计算机科学教育面临着严重的危机——大量计划主修计算机科学的学生在学习的前两个学期就放弃了这门课程。这在很大程度上归因于新生背景和计算机经验的差异。女性和少数族裔学生的留用危机更严重，从而限制了计算机科学人口的多样性。为了解决这些问题，本项目正在开发自定进度、高度互动和集中的编程项目，这些项目不会取代，而是增加传统的整个程序作业，以帮助减少新入学的计算机科学学生的背景差异。为了使这种方法可行，目前的网络技术正在通过WebToTeach整合到CS教学法中。WebToTeach是一种基于网络的自动作业检查工具，使教师能够开发实验室练习并跟踪学生的进度。对于学生来说，WebToTeach提供了编程基本元素的自定进度体验，在解决问题时提供即时反馈和提示。该项目通过将WebToTeach原型扩展到数百个班级，从而增强了它的功能。正在开发的练习库适用于使用不同语言的各种本科计算机科学课程，以便全国各地的教师可以立即将该系统提供给他们课堂上的学生。来自四年制市立大学、一所宗教文理学院、一所社区学院、一所州立大学和一所高中的各种教师将参与这些练习的开发和评估，以证明这些材料在广泛的领域是有用的。通过在全国会议上的演讲和基于网络的教程，教师发展将是这个项目的一个重要方面。该项目的另一个主要目标是教师准备开发WebToTeach课件，供准备或目前从事中等教育职业的学生使用。通过与教育学院教师和高中教师合作，WebToTeach被纳入职前教师技术课程，为未来的高中教师在高中水平上利用这项技术做好准备。它还将用于现有高中教师的在职培训课程。预期的结果是，将有一批准备更充分的大学生进入大学，并最终提高计算机科学专业的多样性。目前正在多个地点使用临床试验数据收集方案对该项目进行评估，试图衡量基于网络的练习和评估在提高学生留校率方面的有效性。

Computer science education suffers from a serious crisis- a large number of students planning a CS major drop the subject within the first two semesters of study. Much of this is attributed to the differences in backgrounds and computer experience of incoming students. The retention crisis is even worse for female and minority students thereby constraining the diversity of the CS population.To address these problems this project is developing self-paced, highly interactive and focused programming projects that do not replace, but augment, the traditional whole program assignments to help attenuate the differences in background of incoming computer science students. To make this approach feasible, current web technology is being integrated into the CS pedagogy through WebToTeach, a web-based automatic homework checking tool that enables faculty to develop lab exercises and track student progress. For students, WebToTeach provides a self-paced experience with the fundamental elements of programming, giving immediate feedback and hints at problem-solving.This project enhances the capabilities of the WebToTeach prototype by scaling it up to deliver thousands of exercises to hundreds of classes. Libraries of exercises, suitable for a wide variety of undergraduate computer science courses using different languages, are being developed so that faculty around the country can immediately make this system available to students in their classes. A variety of faculty from 4-year municipal colleges, a religious liberal arts college, a community college, a state university, and a high school will engage in the development and evaluation of the exercises to demonstrate that this material is useful in a broad range of domains. Faculty development will be an important aspect of this project through presentations at national conferences and web-based tutorials. Another primary objective of this project is teacher preparation to develop WebToTeach courseware for courses used by students preparing for or currently involved in secondary education careers. By working with college of education faculty and high school teachers, WebToTeach is being incorporated into the preservice teacher technology curriculum to prepare future high school teachers to utilize this technology at the high school level. It will also be used in inservice training courses with current high school teachers. The anticipated result is a better-prepared cohort of entering students at the college level and ultimate improvement in the diversity of computer science majors.Evaluation of this project is being conducted at multiple sites using a clinical trial data collection protocol in an attempt to measure the effectiveness of the web-based exercises and assessment in increasing student retention.