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

CPATH奖资助了先前的社区建设奖的扩展，以在全国范围内推广工作室学习模式。一个由四名计算教师和三名评估员组成的团队将在一个精心策划的30个月的国家项目中应对这一挑战，在该项目中，教师发展研讨会将培训10至15名计算机教育工作者，在全国10至15所社区学院和大学教授各种计算和IT专业的最多20门课程，每门课程以工作室为基础的形式教授一次，以传统形式教授一次。将收集和分析丰富的数据，包括测试前和测试后、测试前和测试后调查、学生访谈和教师报告，以评估SBL的影响。当今计算机教育中最常用的教学方法并不能很好地适应未来的计算职业。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。实验和家庭作业一般是针对个人和孤立的工作，而不是交流、合作、陈述和批评。这不仅有可能让学生放弃将计算机作为一门学科，而且也无法让学生为未来做好准备？S的计算机职业生涯需要沟通、协作和批判性分析技能，以及计算思维、设计和解决问题的能力。基于工作室的学习(SBL)模式有可能培训学生的这些技能，使学习计算既吸引人又有效，从而引发计算教育的根本性转变。智力优势：SBL模型的广泛实施和系统评估有可能显著扩展关于有效和引人入胜的计算机教育方法的知识库。由于调查人员关于可持续发展的工作可以追溯到1990年代末，到拟议的项目结束时，合作小组将积累十多年关于可持续发展的执行和影响的数据、理论分析和实用信息。此外，五年的系统实施和评估结果将来自全国各地各种机构的各种计算课程，并针对范围广泛的本科生，使其成为对计算机教育中的教学方法进行的时间最长、最有系统的评估之一。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：国家实施应该使全国各地不同计算专业、不同类型的机构以及不同级别和类型的计算课程的一大批不同的本科生能够从SBL中受益。反过来，这有可能成为更广泛采用该方法的令人信服的理由的开端。最终的好处将不仅是学生们发现计算机课程不那么可怕，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州和为少数族裔服务的机构实施。该项目的活动、评估结果和实践资源不仅将通过论文、演示文稿和会议等传统手段广泛传播，还将通过功能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惠及其他科学和工程课程，因为设计和问题解决在所有的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.