Scalable Remote Peer Help for Programming Education

本项目由美国国家科学基金改进本科STEM教育计划：教育与人力资源（IUSE: EHR）资助，旨在通过改进计算机编程教育服务于国家利益。该项目旨在增强交互式教科书环境Runestone，该环境提供在线计算机科学课程以及相关的学习材料和编程练习。目标是使Runestone能够在练习中为学生提供特定情境的帮助，包括帮助学生编写有效问题的机制。该项目团队计划为辅助系统开发预测模型，将提供帮助的学生与请求帮助的学生进行匹配。远程辅助系统的有效性将在三门Python编程入门课程中进行评估：一门在领导机构，一门在社区大学，另一门通过大型在线课程平台。除了增加帮助的可访问性之外，这个新功能将支持协作学习，这可以帮助学生在通过对话澄清概念的过程中对课程材料有更深的理解。该项目旨在确定影响学生帮助他人意愿、帮助的有效性以及对帮助者的感知学习价值的因素。通过支持学生的协作学习，该项目解决了国家对教学资源的需求，以满足专业和非专业对计算机科学课程日益增长的需求。这个项目的目标是在Runestone提供的计算机编程课程中提供协作学习的机会。为了实现这一目标，一个促进远程代码对话的工具（Chat.codes）将被扩展并集成到Runestone中。这种整合将使学生能够在他们的在线runstone教科书的背景下向同龄人寻求帮助。当学生在做练习时，他们会看到与该练习相关的帮助请求。一旦学生点击进入关于特定帮助请求的对话，该对话将被索引为所有参与者共享的编辑器产生的代码运行。除了整合同伴帮助功能外，该项目还将开发一个工具来指导学生精心设计问题。其他改进措施包括将同侪协助扩展到校园以外的群体，从而增加潜在帮助者的人数，目的是更有选择地将需要帮助的人与帮助者配对。这个项目有潜力在多种情况下为成千上万的学生丰富计算机科学教育。NSF IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。这是“参与式学生学习”轨道上的一个开发和实施项目。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

With support from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR), this project aims to serve the national interest by improving computer programming education. The project aims to augment the interactive textbook environment, Runestone, which offers online computer science courses with associated learning materials and programming exercises. The goal is to enable Runestone to provide context-specific help to students on exercises, including a mechanism to assist students in composing effective questions. The project team plans to develop predictive models for an accompanying system that matches students who are offering assistance with those requesting assistance. The effectiveness of the remote assistance system will be evaluated in three introductory Python programming courses: one at the lead institution, one at a community college, and one through a massive online course platform. Beyond increasing accessibility to help, this new functionality will support collaborative learning, which can help students develop a deeper understanding of course material as they clarify concepts through conversation. The project seeks to identify the factors that affect a student's willingness to help others, the effectiveness of the help, and the perceived learning value to the helper. By supporting students through collaborative learning, this project addresses the national demand for instructional resources to meet the increased demand for enrollment in computer science courses by both majors and non-majors.The goal of this project is to enable collaborative learning opportunities in computer programming courses offered by Runestone. To accomplish this goal, a tool that facilitates remote conversations about code (Chat.codes) will be extended and integrated into Runestone. This integration will enable students to request help from peers in the context of their online Runestone textbook. As students are working on an exercise, they will see requests for help associated with that exercise. Once a student clicks through to the conversation about a specific help request, the conversation will be indexed to code runs resulting from an editor shared by all participants. In addition to integration of a peer help function, the project will develop a tool to guide students in crafting well-formulated questions. Additional enhancements include the expansion of peer help beyond on-campus cohorts, thus increasing the pool of potential helpers, with the aim of matching help requests more selectively with helpers. This project has the potential to enrich computer science education in multiple contexts for thousands of students. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. This is a Development and Implementation project in the Engaged Student Learning track. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.