CPATH-2: Collaborative Research: Broadening Studio-Based Learning in Computing Education

CPATH的这一奖项是先前社区建设奖项的延伸，旨在将工作室学习模式扩展到全国范围。一个由四名计算机教师和三名评估人员组成的团队将在一个精心策划的为期30个月的国家项目中应对这一挑战。在这个项目中，教师发展研讨会将培训10到15名计算机教育工作者，让他们在全国10到15所社区学院和大学教授多达20门课程，这些课程由各种计算机和IT专业的学生选修，每门课程一次以工作室为基础的形式授课，一次以传统形式授课。为了评估SBL的影响，将收集和分析一套丰富的数据，包括前后测试、前后调查、学生访谈和教师报告。当今计算机教育中最常用的教学方法并不适合未来的计算机职业。教学倾向于更多地关注编程，而较少关注计算思维、设计和解决问题。实验和家庭作业通常是针对个人和孤立的工作，而不是沟通，协作，演示和批评。这不仅有让学生对计算机学科失去兴趣的风险，而且也不能让学生为明天做好准备。需要沟通、协作和批判性分析技能，以及计算思维、设计和解决问题能力的计算机职业。基于工作室的学习（SBL）模式有潜力培养学生的这些技能，使学习计算既吸引人又有效，从而引发计算教育的根本转变。智力优点：SBL模型的广泛实施和系统评估有潜力显著扩展有效和引人入胜的计算教育方法的知识库。由于研究人员在SBL上的工作可以追溯到1990年代末，到拟议项目结束时，合作小组将积累超过十年的数据、理论分析和关于SBL实施和影响的实际信息。此外，五年的系统实施和评估结果将从各种计算课程中积累，来自全国各地的各种机构，以及广泛的本科生，使这成为计算机教育中最长和最系统的教学方法评估之一。因此，该项目的成果将丰富计算机教育的理论和实践。更广泛的影响：在全国范围内的实施应使来自全国各地、不同类型的机构、不同层次和类型的计算课程的各种计算专业的大量不同群体的本科生受益于SBL。反过来，这有可能为更广泛地采用这种方法提供一个令人信服的理由。最终的好处是，学生不仅会发现计算机课程不那么令人生畏，更有吸引力，而且他们也为越来越需要计算思维、设计和解决问题、协作和沟通技能的职业做好了准备。该项目包括在几个EPSCOR州和少数民族服务机构实施。这个项目的活动、评价结果和实际资源不仅将通过论文、介绍和会议等传统手段，而且还将通过特色丰富的社区门户网站和其他非传统手段广泛传播。最后，这个项目的结果也可以使其他科学和工程课程受益，因为设计和解决问题在所有科学和工程中都扮演着重要的角色。

This CPATH award funds an extension of a prior community building award to expand the studio learning model on a national scale. A team of four computing faculty and three evaluators will address this challenge in a carefully orchestrated 30-month national project in which faculty development workshops will train ten to fifteen computing educators to teach up to twenty courses taken by a variety of computing and IT majors at ten to fifteen community colleges and universities across the country, with each course taught once in a studio-based format and once in a traditional format. A rich set of data, including pre- and post-tests, pre- and post-surveys, student interviews, and instructor reports, will be collected and analyzed in order to evaluate the impact of SBL. The instructional methods most commonly employed today in computing education are not a good match for computing careers of the future. Instruction tends to focus more on programming and less on computational thinking, design, and problem solving. Labs and homework assignments are generally geared toward individual and isolated work rather than communication, collaboration, presentation and critiquing. This not only runs the risk of turning students off to computing as a discipline, but also fails to prepare students for tomorrow?s computing careers that require skills in communication, collaboration and critical analysis, as well as computational thinking, design and problem solving. The Studio-Based Learning (SBL) model has the potential to train students in these skills, make learning computing both engaging and effective, and thus trigger a fundamental shift in computing education. Intellectual merits: The broad implementation and systematic evaluation of the SBL model has the potential to significantly expand the knowledge base on effective and engaging methods of computing education. Since the investigators' work on SBL dates back to the late 1990s, by the end of the proposed project, the collaborative group will have accumulated over a decade of data, theoretical analyses and practical information on the implementation and impact of SBL. Furthermore, five years' worth of systematic implementation and evaluation results will have accrued from a variety of computing courses, from a variety of institutions across the country, and for a broad spectrum of undergraduate students, making this one of the longest and most systematic evaluation of a pedagogical approach in computing education. Results from the project will therefore enrich both the theory and practice of computing education. Broader impacts: The national implementation should enable a large and diverse group of undergraduates in a variety of computing majors from across the country, in different types of institutions, and in different levels and types of computing courses, to benefit from SBL. In turn, this has the potential to form the beginnings of a convincing case for an even broader adoption of the approach. The ultimate benefit will be not only that students find the computing curriculum less intimidating and more engaging, but also that they are prepared for careers that increasingly require skills of computational thinking, design and problem solving, collaboration and communication. The project includes implementation in several EPSCOR states and minority-serving institutions. The activities of this project, evaluation results, and practical resources will be widely disseminated not only through the traditional means of papers, presentations and meetings, but also through a feature-rich community portal and other non-traditional means. Finally, this project's results could also benefit other science and engineering curricula because design and problem solving play important roles in all of science and engineering.