Arnold Pears | KTH Royal Institute of Technology (original) (raw)
Papers by Arnold Pears
Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education
This study examines the effect of using Desmos on students’ performance in learning functions. An... more This study examines the effect of using Desmos on students’ performance in learning functions. An embedded mixed methods design was applied and involved 98 students from an upper secondary school in Sweden. Students’ assessments (pre- and post-test) and opinion polls were the two main data collection instruments. The results show that both groups (experimental and control) experienced a significant improvement in their post-test scores. However, the experimental group had a statistically significant improvement in comparison with that of the control group across the five constructs used in this study. The qualitative data revealed that the majority of the students ascribed a positive effect of the use of Desmos on their general understanding of function concepts, their ability to analyze functions and check their answers through visualization, which are difficult when working using paper and pencil.
2019 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)
Quality assurance processes in education have been a key area of engineering education developmen... more Quality assurance processes in education have been a key area of engineering education development for several decades. ABET, ENQA-The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, as well as other agencies in Europe and the Asia Pacific have largely converged on a set of high level graduate outcomes, widely considered to be those most relevant to the engineering professions. We suggest that outcome assessment can be classified into four major approaches, education as a service (with the focus on identifying customers), as a process (with a focus on describing the formative impact of curriculum on learners), as a Body of Knowledge (with a focus on transmission of that knowledge and the generation of artefacts), and finally as expansion of the individual (focusing on holistic development of the intellect).
IEEE Access
Computerisation and digitalisation are shaping the world in fundamental and unpredictable ways, w... more Computerisation and digitalisation are shaping the world in fundamental and unpredictable ways, which highlights the importance of computing education research (CER). As part of understanding the roots of CER, it is crucial to investigate the evolution of CER as a research discipline. In this paper we present a case study of a Finnish CER conference called Koli Calling, which was launched in 2001, and which has become a central publication venue of CER. We use data from 2001 to 2020, and investigate the evolution of Koli Calling's scholarly communities and zoom in on it's publication habits and internalisation process. We explore the narrative of the development and scholarly agenda behind changes in the conference submission categories from the perspective of some of the conference chairs over the years. We then take a qualitative perspective, analysing the conference publications based on a comprehensive bibliometric analysis. The outcomes include classification of important research clusters of authors in the community of conference contributors. Interestingly, we find traces of important events in the historical development of CER. In particular, we find clusters emerging from specific research capacity building initiatives and we can trace how these connect research spanning the world CER community from Finland to Sweden and then further to the USA, Australia and New Zealand. This paper makes a strategic contribution to the evolution of CER as a research discipline, from the perspective of one central event and publication venue, providing a broad perspective on the role of the conference in connecting research clusters and establishing an international research community. This work contributes insights to researchers in one specific CER community and how they shape the future of computing education.
The aim of higher education is to enable students to acquire knowledge and to exercise cognitive ... more The aim of higher education is to enable students to acquire knowledge and to exercise cognitive skills in order support them in their preparation for a professional career. Rather than transferring knowledge in face-to-face contact the modern teacher has to design a stimulating learning environment. The success of educational models, like Problem-Based-Learning and Active Learning is often explained by the motivating effect of discussing real-life problems in small groups of students. The technology of virtual reality provides new possibilities to involve students in learning activities. No longer do groups of students (and their teacher) have to meet at a fixed time and place. Simulations and gaming can motivate students to engage in activities that make them learn. The biggest challenge for the teacher is to imagine what is motivating for a present day student.
Proceedings Companion of the 23rd Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, 2018
How might the content and outcomes of tertiary education programmes be described and analysed in ... more How might the content and outcomes of tertiary education programmes be described and analysed in order to understand how they are structured and function? To address this question we develop a framework for modelling graduate competencies linked to tertiary degree programmes in the computing disciplines. While the focus of our work is computing the framework is applicable to education more broadly. The work presented here draws upon the pioneering curricular document for information technology (IT2017), curricular competency frameworks, other related documents such as the software engineering competency model (SWECOM), the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), current research in competency models, and elicitation workshop results from recent computing conferences. The aim is to inform the ongoing Computing Curricula (CC2020) project, an endeavour supported by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the IEEE Computer Society. We develop the Competency Learning Framework (CoLeaF), providing an internationally relevant tool for describing competencies. We argue that
Informatics in Schools. New Ideas in School Informatics, 2019
Computational thinking (CT) skills are argued to be vital to preparing future generations of lear... more Computational thinking (CT) skills are argued to be vital to preparing future generations of learners to be productive citizens in our increasingly technologically sophisticated societies. However, teacher education lags behind policy in many countries, and there is a palpable need for enhanced support for teacher education in CT. This paper addresses this gap, establishing an intellectual framework with which to explore the manner in which CT can be inculcated in compulsory school students. Drawing on a deeper awareness of the broader societal and cultural context of the activities we introduce a new approach to designing teacher education. The novelty of our approach is that training computation thinking is framed as an integrative element rather than as a separate study subject. This approach provides better articulation between Engineering and Science oriented subjects and Arts, providing supporting methods to develop the professional skills of student-teachers.
IEEE Access, 2021
Over the past decades, numerous practical applications of machine learning techniques have shown ... more Over the past decades, numerous practical applications of machine learning techniques have shown the potential of AI-driven and data-driven approaches in a large number of computing fields. Machine learning is increasingly included in computing curricula in higher education, and a quickly growing number of initiatives are expanding it in K-12 computing education, too. As machine learning enters K-12 computing education, understanding how intuition and agency in the context of such systems is developed becomes a key research area. But as schools and teachers are already struggling with integrating traditional computational thinking and traditional artificial intelligence into school curricula, understanding the challenges behind teaching machine learning in K-12 is an even more daunting challenge for computing education research. Despite the central position of machine learning and AI in the field of modern computing, the computing education research body of literature contains remarkably few studies of how people learn to train, test, improve, and deploy machine learning systems. This is especially true of the K-12 curriculum space. This article charts the emerging trajectories in educational practice, theory, and technology related to teaching machine learning in K-12 education. The article situates the existing work in the context of computing education in general, and describes some differences that K-12 computing educators should take into account when facing this challenge. The article focuses on key aspects of the paradigm shift that will be required in order to successfully integrate machine learning into the broader K-12 computing curricula. A crucial step is abandoning the belief that rule-based ''traditional'' programming is a central aspect and building block in developing next generation computational thinking.
2017 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2017
As computer science enters the school curricula in an increasing number of countries, teachers mu... more As computer science enters the school curricula in an increasing number of countries, teachers must prepare to integrate digital competences into their teaching. This integration is a moving target where new methods, tools and applications appear and disappear at such rates that teachers must have confidence to independently and continuously explore what is new, what is relevant and how to plan their pedagogic activities to include digital competences. In this context approaches which can be used to study self-efficacy in digital competences among school teachers are desperately needed. With such a tool in place, we can make a baseline study and then follow teachers over time to measure changes in their self-efficacy, the cause of these changes and learn how to build their digital competence selfefficacy in different ways. The same tool can also be used to measure the self-efficacy in other populations, e.g., students in teacher training programs to ensure that they obtain an adequate self-efficacy in digital competences during their studies. This paper describes the development of a self-efficacy scale in digital competences, based on the DigiComp 2.0 framework definition of digital competence. The tool focuses predominantly on digital competences relevant for teachers in school years K-9.
Informatics in Schools: Focus on Learning Programming, 2017
This paper reports on the results of a study of teacher preparedness and practices in relation to... more This paper reports on the results of a study of teacher preparedness and practices in relation to teaching computing and computational thinking at schools in Sweden, Finland and Lithuania. The study was conducted as part of a NordForsk funded project to explore how Computing Education Research in the Universities can help the development of teacher training and K-12 curriculum and teaching practices. The study found that many teachers are already engaged in teaching relevant material in the schools, and that many have good support in their local school environment. However, there are also significant challenges which emerge from the new curricula that have been introduced in Sweden and Finland. To meet these challenges new teacher training programmes will be needed, and we recommend that computational thinking and computing concepts be introduced into the core subject content of teacher education programmes in order to better prepare teachers to meet the educational demands of our increasingly digitalised society.
2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings
Elizabeth leads the Engineering Management and Statistics competencies at Iron Range Engineering,... more Elizabeth leads the Engineering Management and Statistics competencies at Iron Range Engineering, an ABET-accredited project-based engineering education program of Minnesota State University, Mankato. She enjoys helping student engineers develop entrepreneurial mindsets through project-based and experiential learning. Her research interests include improving engineering education through faculty development, game-based learning, and reflection. Elizabeth was a Certified Public Accountant and Controller in a manufacturing company; her Ph.D. in Organization and Management is from
2015 International Conference on Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering, 2015
In this special session we meet a set of projects in computer science and engineering education a... more In this special session we meet a set of projects in computer science and engineering education at a university in Saudi Arabia. They are the product of a pedagogical development course ran in collaboration with a Swedish university during the academic year 2013/2014. The projects reflect the local situation, with its possibilities and challenges, and suggest steps to take, in the local environment, to enhance education. As such it is a unique document that brings insights from computer science and engineering education into the international literature.
Masters level programs play a significant role in the preparation of academics and professionals ... more Masters level programs play a significant role in the preparation of academics and professionals in the computing disciplines [1]. These programs vary greatly within the wide variety of universities found in the European and American traditions, and across the increasingly broad range of computing disciplines. This report presents the conclusions of a joint committee of the ACM Education Board and the IEEE-CS Educational Activities Board. The committee was charged with identifying the characteristics of Masters degrees in ...
2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2020
This Work in Progress paper describes considerations relative to the development of a follow-up e... more This Work in Progress paper describes considerations relative to the development of a follow-up exploratory quantitative design for examining student motivation in higher engineering education. The intent of the current work is to build on the outcomes of a previous qualitative study exploring the perceptions of students with regard to work industry-related activities included as part of their formal study experience in Swedish university settings. In the follow-up study design discussed in this paper we focus on a quantitative approach to assessing the impact of such experiences on student motivation. Findings from our previous study indicate both that how these different work industry-related activities are conducted and how the different relationships that are present can effect students’ motivation for learning in tertiary engineering education. However, while the earlier study provides understanding of which scenarios can affect student motivation, there is a need to consider r...
2019 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2019
This full research paper aims to investigate the nature of industry-related activities engineerin... more This full research paper aims to investigate the nature of industry-related activities engineering students encounter at a Swedish university, as well as the impact these activities have on their motivation to study engineering. Over the last decade, many studies have been conducted concerning university-industry engagement which chart the landscape of activities, educational approaches, and challenges that students face when involved in industry-related activities. Despite the existing close collaboration between Swedish engineering universities and industry, it seems that not only the feedback from the industry to universities is missing, but also students' perceptions of their industry experience and their needs are not taken adequately into consideration by the other two actors. As a consequence, there is a gap among the above three actors preventing the advancement of engineering education in terms of industrial interventions. Furthermore, there is a lack of research about students' perceptions of university-industry engagement activities. This study adopts a qualitative and exploratory research perspective, intending to gain a deep understanding of students' perceptions of industry-related activities which were integrated into their education. Semistructured interviews were conducted with nine master's students studying on five-year long engineering programmes in a large research-intensive Swedish university. An inductive thematic analysis was employed, and social cognitive theory was considered as an interpretive tool through which to explore student motivation. The interviews indicated that the students participated actively in various industry-related activities, such as guest lectures, field-trips, internships, summer schools, and masters' theses in collaboration with industry partners which give context to the findings which highlight how industry-related activities can either positively or negatively affect students' motivation for studying and learning in engineering education.
Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education
This study examines the effect of using Desmos on students’ performance in learning functions. An... more This study examines the effect of using Desmos on students’ performance in learning functions. An embedded mixed methods design was applied and involved 98 students from an upper secondary school in Sweden. Students’ assessments (pre- and post-test) and opinion polls were the two main data collection instruments. The results show that both groups (experimental and control) experienced a significant improvement in their post-test scores. However, the experimental group had a statistically significant improvement in comparison with that of the control group across the five constructs used in this study. The qualitative data revealed that the majority of the students ascribed a positive effect of the use of Desmos on their general understanding of function concepts, their ability to analyze functions and check their answers through visualization, which are difficult when working using paper and pencil.
2019 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)
Quality assurance processes in education have been a key area of engineering education developmen... more Quality assurance processes in education have been a key area of engineering education development for several decades. ABET, ENQA-The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, as well as other agencies in Europe and the Asia Pacific have largely converged on a set of high level graduate outcomes, widely considered to be those most relevant to the engineering professions. We suggest that outcome assessment can be classified into four major approaches, education as a service (with the focus on identifying customers), as a process (with a focus on describing the formative impact of curriculum on learners), as a Body of Knowledge (with a focus on transmission of that knowledge and the generation of artefacts), and finally as expansion of the individual (focusing on holistic development of the intellect).
IEEE Access
Computerisation and digitalisation are shaping the world in fundamental and unpredictable ways, w... more Computerisation and digitalisation are shaping the world in fundamental and unpredictable ways, which highlights the importance of computing education research (CER). As part of understanding the roots of CER, it is crucial to investigate the evolution of CER as a research discipline. In this paper we present a case study of a Finnish CER conference called Koli Calling, which was launched in 2001, and which has become a central publication venue of CER. We use data from 2001 to 2020, and investigate the evolution of Koli Calling's scholarly communities and zoom in on it's publication habits and internalisation process. We explore the narrative of the development and scholarly agenda behind changes in the conference submission categories from the perspective of some of the conference chairs over the years. We then take a qualitative perspective, analysing the conference publications based on a comprehensive bibliometric analysis. The outcomes include classification of important research clusters of authors in the community of conference contributors. Interestingly, we find traces of important events in the historical development of CER. In particular, we find clusters emerging from specific research capacity building initiatives and we can trace how these connect research spanning the world CER community from Finland to Sweden and then further to the USA, Australia and New Zealand. This paper makes a strategic contribution to the evolution of CER as a research discipline, from the perspective of one central event and publication venue, providing a broad perspective on the role of the conference in connecting research clusters and establishing an international research community. This work contributes insights to researchers in one specific CER community and how they shape the future of computing education.
The aim of higher education is to enable students to acquire knowledge and to exercise cognitive ... more The aim of higher education is to enable students to acquire knowledge and to exercise cognitive skills in order support them in their preparation for a professional career. Rather than transferring knowledge in face-to-face contact the modern teacher has to design a stimulating learning environment. The success of educational models, like Problem-Based-Learning and Active Learning is often explained by the motivating effect of discussing real-life problems in small groups of students. The technology of virtual reality provides new possibilities to involve students in learning activities. No longer do groups of students (and their teacher) have to meet at a fixed time and place. Simulations and gaming can motivate students to engage in activities that make them learn. The biggest challenge for the teacher is to imagine what is motivating for a present day student.
Proceedings Companion of the 23rd Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, 2018
How might the content and outcomes of tertiary education programmes be described and analysed in ... more How might the content and outcomes of tertiary education programmes be described and analysed in order to understand how they are structured and function? To address this question we develop a framework for modelling graduate competencies linked to tertiary degree programmes in the computing disciplines. While the focus of our work is computing the framework is applicable to education more broadly. The work presented here draws upon the pioneering curricular document for information technology (IT2017), curricular competency frameworks, other related documents such as the software engineering competency model (SWECOM), the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), current research in competency models, and elicitation workshop results from recent computing conferences. The aim is to inform the ongoing Computing Curricula (CC2020) project, an endeavour supported by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the IEEE Computer Society. We develop the Competency Learning Framework (CoLeaF), providing an internationally relevant tool for describing competencies. We argue that
Informatics in Schools. New Ideas in School Informatics, 2019
Computational thinking (CT) skills are argued to be vital to preparing future generations of lear... more Computational thinking (CT) skills are argued to be vital to preparing future generations of learners to be productive citizens in our increasingly technologically sophisticated societies. However, teacher education lags behind policy in many countries, and there is a palpable need for enhanced support for teacher education in CT. This paper addresses this gap, establishing an intellectual framework with which to explore the manner in which CT can be inculcated in compulsory school students. Drawing on a deeper awareness of the broader societal and cultural context of the activities we introduce a new approach to designing teacher education. The novelty of our approach is that training computation thinking is framed as an integrative element rather than as a separate study subject. This approach provides better articulation between Engineering and Science oriented subjects and Arts, providing supporting methods to develop the professional skills of student-teachers.
IEEE Access, 2021
Over the past decades, numerous practical applications of machine learning techniques have shown ... more Over the past decades, numerous practical applications of machine learning techniques have shown the potential of AI-driven and data-driven approaches in a large number of computing fields. Machine learning is increasingly included in computing curricula in higher education, and a quickly growing number of initiatives are expanding it in K-12 computing education, too. As machine learning enters K-12 computing education, understanding how intuition and agency in the context of such systems is developed becomes a key research area. But as schools and teachers are already struggling with integrating traditional computational thinking and traditional artificial intelligence into school curricula, understanding the challenges behind teaching machine learning in K-12 is an even more daunting challenge for computing education research. Despite the central position of machine learning and AI in the field of modern computing, the computing education research body of literature contains remarkably few studies of how people learn to train, test, improve, and deploy machine learning systems. This is especially true of the K-12 curriculum space. This article charts the emerging trajectories in educational practice, theory, and technology related to teaching machine learning in K-12 education. The article situates the existing work in the context of computing education in general, and describes some differences that K-12 computing educators should take into account when facing this challenge. The article focuses on key aspects of the paradigm shift that will be required in order to successfully integrate machine learning into the broader K-12 computing curricula. A crucial step is abandoning the belief that rule-based ''traditional'' programming is a central aspect and building block in developing next generation computational thinking.
2017 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2017
As computer science enters the school curricula in an increasing number of countries, teachers mu... more As computer science enters the school curricula in an increasing number of countries, teachers must prepare to integrate digital competences into their teaching. This integration is a moving target where new methods, tools and applications appear and disappear at such rates that teachers must have confidence to independently and continuously explore what is new, what is relevant and how to plan their pedagogic activities to include digital competences. In this context approaches which can be used to study self-efficacy in digital competences among school teachers are desperately needed. With such a tool in place, we can make a baseline study and then follow teachers over time to measure changes in their self-efficacy, the cause of these changes and learn how to build their digital competence selfefficacy in different ways. The same tool can also be used to measure the self-efficacy in other populations, e.g., students in teacher training programs to ensure that they obtain an adequate self-efficacy in digital competences during their studies. This paper describes the development of a self-efficacy scale in digital competences, based on the DigiComp 2.0 framework definition of digital competence. The tool focuses predominantly on digital competences relevant for teachers in school years K-9.
Informatics in Schools: Focus on Learning Programming, 2017
This paper reports on the results of a study of teacher preparedness and practices in relation to... more This paper reports on the results of a study of teacher preparedness and practices in relation to teaching computing and computational thinking at schools in Sweden, Finland and Lithuania. The study was conducted as part of a NordForsk funded project to explore how Computing Education Research in the Universities can help the development of teacher training and K-12 curriculum and teaching practices. The study found that many teachers are already engaged in teaching relevant material in the schools, and that many have good support in their local school environment. However, there are also significant challenges which emerge from the new curricula that have been introduced in Sweden and Finland. To meet these challenges new teacher training programmes will be needed, and we recommend that computational thinking and computing concepts be introduced into the core subject content of teacher education programmes in order to better prepare teachers to meet the educational demands of our increasingly digitalised society.
2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings
Elizabeth leads the Engineering Management and Statistics competencies at Iron Range Engineering,... more Elizabeth leads the Engineering Management and Statistics competencies at Iron Range Engineering, an ABET-accredited project-based engineering education program of Minnesota State University, Mankato. She enjoys helping student engineers develop entrepreneurial mindsets through project-based and experiential learning. Her research interests include improving engineering education through faculty development, game-based learning, and reflection. Elizabeth was a Certified Public Accountant and Controller in a manufacturing company; her Ph.D. in Organization and Management is from
2015 International Conference on Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering, 2015
In this special session we meet a set of projects in computer science and engineering education a... more In this special session we meet a set of projects in computer science and engineering education at a university in Saudi Arabia. They are the product of a pedagogical development course ran in collaboration with a Swedish university during the academic year 2013/2014. The projects reflect the local situation, with its possibilities and challenges, and suggest steps to take, in the local environment, to enhance education. As such it is a unique document that brings insights from computer science and engineering education into the international literature.
Masters level programs play a significant role in the preparation of academics and professionals ... more Masters level programs play a significant role in the preparation of academics and professionals in the computing disciplines [1]. These programs vary greatly within the wide variety of universities found in the European and American traditions, and across the increasingly broad range of computing disciplines. This report presents the conclusions of a joint committee of the ACM Education Board and the IEEE-CS Educational Activities Board. The committee was charged with identifying the characteristics of Masters degrees in ...
2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2020
This Work in Progress paper describes considerations relative to the development of a follow-up e... more This Work in Progress paper describes considerations relative to the development of a follow-up exploratory quantitative design for examining student motivation in higher engineering education. The intent of the current work is to build on the outcomes of a previous qualitative study exploring the perceptions of students with regard to work industry-related activities included as part of their formal study experience in Swedish university settings. In the follow-up study design discussed in this paper we focus on a quantitative approach to assessing the impact of such experiences on student motivation. Findings from our previous study indicate both that how these different work industry-related activities are conducted and how the different relationships that are present can effect students’ motivation for learning in tertiary engineering education. However, while the earlier study provides understanding of which scenarios can affect student motivation, there is a need to consider r...
2019 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2019
This full research paper aims to investigate the nature of industry-related activities engineerin... more This full research paper aims to investigate the nature of industry-related activities engineering students encounter at a Swedish university, as well as the impact these activities have on their motivation to study engineering. Over the last decade, many studies have been conducted concerning university-industry engagement which chart the landscape of activities, educational approaches, and challenges that students face when involved in industry-related activities. Despite the existing close collaboration between Swedish engineering universities and industry, it seems that not only the feedback from the industry to universities is missing, but also students' perceptions of their industry experience and their needs are not taken adequately into consideration by the other two actors. As a consequence, there is a gap among the above three actors preventing the advancement of engineering education in terms of industrial interventions. Furthermore, there is a lack of research about students' perceptions of university-industry engagement activities. This study adopts a qualitative and exploratory research perspective, intending to gain a deep understanding of students' perceptions of industry-related activities which were integrated into their education. Semistructured interviews were conducted with nine master's students studying on five-year long engineering programmes in a large research-intensive Swedish university. An inductive thematic analysis was employed, and social cognitive theory was considered as an interpretive tool through which to explore student motivation. The interviews indicated that the students participated actively in various industry-related activities, such as guest lectures, field-trips, internships, summer schools, and masters' theses in collaboration with industry partners which give context to the findings which highlight how industry-related activities can either positively or negatively affect students' motivation for studying and learning in engineering education.
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Computing Education Research - Koli '08, 2008
This volume is the culmination of more than a year of planning and effort on the part of both the... more This volume is the culmination of more than a year of planning and effort on the part of both the local organising committee and the conference chairs. However, we were not working alone. Without an active community of researchers doing quality research and writing papers, a conference like Koli has no function or purpose. Consequently, a large part of the success of Koli Calling lies in its vibrant research community. It is your submissions that have made it possible for us to select this year's crop of interesting and thought provoking contributions.
2014 International Conference on Teaching and Learning in Computing and Engineering, 2014
Developing and improving teaching and learning in computer science is a complex task. One of the ... more Developing and improving teaching and learning in computer science is a complex task. One of the most significant challenges involves encouraging students, teachers and the formal university structures to all move in the same direction, for example to embrace the ideas of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Much of the difficulty can be found in the fact that the intrinsic nature of SoTL implies that teaching and learning should be researched and critically examined. This in turn demands a development of underlying staff and organisational attitudes. As a consequence, the ways to relate to the students, the subject area, the teaching and our colleagues must scrutinised,
IEEE EDUCON 2010 Conference, 2010
The Runestone project is a collaborative course currently offered by Universities in Sweden, Finl... more The Runestone project is a collaborative course currently offered by Universities in Sweden, Finland, and China. The course provides a unique opportunity for third year engineering students from a variety of programs to experience the opportunities and challenges that international teamwork involves. Teams composed of students from two countries work intensively over a 10 to 13 week project cycle to develop a system which allows a user to remote-control a LEGO NXT robot. The teams negotiate the features of their final system with the academic supervisors from the participating Universities, propose a development time-frame and deliverables, and develop and demonstrate a prototype system. This paper uses teaching and learning findings from engineering education research. The evidence is used to arrive at an instructional design that aligns learning outcomes, with instruction and assessment to support student's learning outcomes development throughout the course, We also discuss the evolution of the course over the past 12 years as we moved from a pilot version with eight students from two universities to a large scale course with between sixty and eighty students from between three and five universities distributed over three continents and widely different educational and social cultures.
Proceedings of the 13th annual conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education - ITiCSE '08, 2008
Teams representing the USA and Europe engage in a battle of words and wits to establish &... more Teams representing the USA and Europe engage in a battle of words and wits to establish "once and for all" which educational system produces the superior outcome. This "no holds barred" debate leaves no stone unturned in a search for truth on this question, providing a final answer to a controversy that has plagued our community since the inception of
ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 2008
Adoption of the Bologna Accord in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) represents a concerte... more Adoption of the Bologna Accord in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) represents a concerted move towards harmonisation of educational outcomes in higher education at the Bachelor, Masters and PhD levels.
ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 2008
Teams representing the USA and Europe engage in a battle of words and wits to establish &... more Teams representing the USA and Europe engage in a battle of words and wits to establish "once and for all" which educational system produces the superior outcome. This "no holds barred" debate leaves no stone unturned in a search for truth on this question, providing a final answer to a controversy that has plagued our community since the inception of
ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 2007
Three decades of active research on the teaching of introductory programming has had limited effe... more Three decades of active research on the teaching of introductory programming has had limited effect on classroom practice. Although relevant research exists across several disciplines including education and cognitive science, disciplinary differences have made this material inaccessible to many computing educators. Furthermore, computer science instructors have not had access to a comprehensive survey of research in this area. This paper collects and classifies this literature, identifies important work and mediates it to computing educators and professional bodies.
Most Information Technology academics lead double lives. In our research lives, we are involved i... more Most Information Technology academics lead double lives. In our research lives, we are involved in a community that exists primarily beyond our own university. We read the literature, we attend conferences, we work within well defined theoretical or empirical frameworks, we publish, and the cycle repeats, with community members building upon each other's work.
Proceedings of the 14th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research - Koli Calling '14, 2014
Proceedings of the …, 2006
Most Information Technology academics lead double lives. In our research lives, we are involved i... more Most Information Technology academics lead double lives. In our research lives, we are involved in a community that exists primarily beyond our own university. We read the literature, we attend conferences, we work within well defined theoretical or empirical frameworks, we publish, and the cycle repeats, with community members building upon each other's work.
Proceedings of the tenth …, 2008
To accommodate an increasing interest in phenomenography among the computing education research c... more To accommodate an increasing interest in phenomenography among the computing education research community, the authors of this paper have organised two workshops, or intensive courses, in phenomenography, intended for researchers in computing education at a university level. Although the workshop programs contained lectures and smaller exercises, the emphasis was on preparing one joint publication from each of the workshops. The publication from the first workshop discussed the experience ...
Proceedings of the …, Jan 30, 2007
This paper presents first results from a wide-ranging phenomenographic study of computing academi... more This paper presents first results from a wide-ranging phenomenographic study of computing academics' understanding of teaching. These first results focus upon four areas: the role of lab practical sessions, the experience of teaching success, conceptions of motivating and engaging students, and the granularity of the teacher's focus. The findings are comparable with prior work on the understandings of academics in other disciplines. This study was started as part of a workshop on phenomenography. Most participants at ...
In this paper, we present three different mechanisms for globalising engineering education:(1) st... more In this paper, we present three different mechanisms for globalising engineering education:(1) student and staff exchanges,(2) joint courses, where the students work in globally distributed teams; and (3) joint degree programmes. We argue that the three mechanisms complement each other and that successful globalisation within an institution can be archived by combining the three.
Australian Computer Science Communications, 2012
We have been engaged in computing education research for close to two decades. One characteristic... more We have been engaged in computing education research for close to two decades. One characteristic of the field has been a preponderance of exploratory research, Marco Polo papers as Valentine termed them. Even considering the entire research corpus it is hard to discern a clear trend in terms of models and methods for conducting research. While some prominent researchers, such as Fincher, have established a tradition of mixed method research and multi-institutional studies, these approaches form a branch of the discipline ...
Runestone started as a project funded by the Swedish council for renewal of higher education in 1... more Runestone started as a project funded by the Swedish council for renewal of higher education in 1997 and has developed into a major component in an international community of developers and researchers in computer science education. We will here tell its story, or rather one of them.
SIMULATION SERIES, 2002
Arnold Pears, Mats Daniels and Anders Berglund Department of Computer Systems, University of Upps... more Arnold Pears, Mats Daniels and Anders Berglund Department of Computer Systems, University of Uppsala, Box 325, 751 05 Uppsala, SWEDEN Ph:+ 46 18 4710000, FAX:+ 46 18 55 02 25 Email: arnoldp@ docs. uu. se Keywords: Research models, CS education research, teaching and learning
ACM Transactions on Computing Education, 2009
… on Computing education-Volume …, 2006
Qualitative research approaches have much to offer computing education research (CER). Conducting... more Qualitative research approaches have much to offer computing education research (CER). Conducting studies which are theoretically anchored in pedagogy, as well as in computing, can help us to draw more solid and significant conclusions about how students learn computing. When studying teaching and learning situations it is important to take into explicit account what is meant by learning. We claim that this implies that research into student learning is strengthened by increased awareness of the role and relevance of ...
2008 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference, 2008
CeTUSS (www.CeTUSS.se) is an engineering education center established by the Swedish Council for ... more CeTUSS (www.CeTUSS.se) is an engineering education center established by the Swedish Council for Renewal of Higher Education in 2004. During 2006/2007 CeTUSS funded "
This paper opens the classroom door to provide insight into factors that shape tertiary computer ... more This paper opens the classroom door to provide insight into factors that shape tertiary computer science teachers' experience of (and engagement with) student learning success and failure. This topic is explored through phenomenographic analysis of teacher narratives dealing with frustration and success in facilitating learning for their students.
This report develops and analyses the reliability and validity of a Swedish translation of the Tr... more This report develops and analyses the reliability and validity of a Swedish translation of the Trigwell and Prosser Approaches to Teaching Inventory (ATI) using data collected from academics in the Faculty of Technology and Natural Sciences at Uppsala University Sweden.
... Adams, Robin. Fincher, Sally. Pears, Arnold (Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Scien... more ... Adams, Robin. Fincher, Sally. Pears, Arnold (Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Mathematics and Computer Science, Department of Information Technology, Computer Systems) (UpCERG, CeTUSS). Börstler, Jürgen. Boustedt, Jonas (Uppsala ...
Applications and the …, 2001
Grading is a frequently discussed and contentious issue. There are several views on how best to d... more Grading is a frequently discussed and contentious issue. There are several views on how best to do grading and deciding how to grade students who participate in a joint international project-oriented course is far from trivial. This paper examines some in-situ observations and concerns, here referred to as myths, which arose during the project. Some statistical information extracted from the assessment data is used to examine the truth and relevance of these myths
Abstract—Research questions in STEM disciplines are frequently strongly contextualised in the tea... more Abstract—Research questions in STEM disciplines are frequently strongly contextualised in the teaching and learning practice of the researcher. In this paper we chart a number of possible paths a researcher can follow from a single research proposition, or fundamental research question, to results which can vary significantly in nature. In order to do this, we establish a theoretical framework for research activity and examine the meaning of” theory” as a cognitive and research tool that helps engineering education practitioners and ...
International journal of engineering education, 2010
Globalization presents engineering educators with new challenges as they face the need for gradua... more Globalization presents engineering educators with new challenges as they face the need for graduates who can function comfortably in an increasingly distributed team context which crosses country and cultural boundaries. Scaffolding learners to acquire professional attributes which transcend the solely technical places stress on traditional curriculum models. This paper analyses an Open Ended Group Project Framework (OEGP) situated in an action research program applied within the IT in Society course at Uppsala University. ...
This report develops and analyses the reliability and validity of a Swedish translation of the Tr... more This report develops and analyses the reliability and validity of a Swedish translation of the Trigwell and Prosser Approaches to Teaching Inventory (ATI) using data collected from academics in the Faculty of Technology and Natural Sciences at Uppsala University Sweden.
ACM Inroads, 2010
Globalisation of education appears to be is increasingly a topic for discussion as universities w... more Globalisation of education appears to be is increasingly a topic for discussion as universities worldwide.
2009 39th IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, 2009
Quality assurance of higher education is based on a combination of collegial and student evaluati... more Quality assurance of higher education is based on a combination of collegial and student evaluation in many universities. Conceptions of what teaching at university level involves can be expected to play an important role in defining what we mean by high quality instruction.
Only the foolhardy would question the importance and status that quality assurance holds in the c... more Only the foolhardy would question the importance and status that quality assurance holds in the current political climate that prevails for higher education. This paper critiques the culture of higher education quality assurance and accreditation that has emerged over the last twenty years. An underlying trend that influences quality systems for higher education is the focus on process and service. This results in quality systems that focus on documenting educational processes, and which often assume that students are a type of customer, and education a type of service.
![Research paper thumbnail of A New Approach to Object Oriented Simulation of Concurrent Systems [3083-13]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/44575880/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](High speed simulation of concurrent systems requires distributed processing if meaningful results... more High speed simulation of concurrent systems requires distributed processing if meaningful results are to be obtained for large systems in a reasonable timeframe. One of the most common methods used for such simulation is Parallel Discrete Event Simulation (PDES). A range of PDES simulation kernels have been developed and much research has been devoted to optimistic execution strategies such as TimeWarp.
This paper describes the conceptual design of OBJECTSIM. OBJECTSIM represents a new flexible and ... more This paper describes the conceptual design of OBJECTSIM. OBJECTSIM represents a new flexible and generic approach to modelling the performance of parallel and distributed systems. Performance measures of interest include overall execution speed, numbers of secondary memory accesses and network reconfiguration and routing activity. Using distributed simulation techniques adapted from the research on the Time Warp Operating System (TWOS)(15,16), and drawing on the theoretical design principles laid down by Tanir and Sevinc(17) OBJECTSIM achieves a high level of performance, flexibility and adaptability. OBJECTSIM overcomes the narrow focus of previous simulators by specifying a small number of generic simulation objects (and an associated hierarchy) that are capable of implementing a wide range of target systems. Target systems range from multi-stage interconnection networks (MINs) and ATM and B-ISDN networks, through to bus and network based multiprocessors. The combination of this kernel with the object hierarchy method makes OBJECTSIM a unique contribution to the field. OBJECTSIM is implemented in C++ on a network of SUN stations.
... Arnold Pears, Edwige Pissaloux, Samar Singh, Martyn Hodgson, and Tharam S. Dillon ... Recent... more ... Arnold Pears, Edwige Pissaloux, Samar Singh, Martyn Hodgson, and Tharam S. Dillon ... Recent research on the principles and structure of object oriented systems and simulation environments has also provided valuable insights (Coomber 1993; Dillon and Chang ????; Mirra ...
Algorithms for Multispectral and Hyperspectral Imagery IV, 1998
Face recognition has potential applications in surveillance and security systems. Most algorithms... more Face recognition has potential applications in surveillance and security systems. Most algorithms proceed by constructing a feature vector, which represents those aspects of the face which vary most between individuals. In general these algorithms locate critical features such as the eyes nose and mouth, and use a mixture of direct comparison, and spatial distribution of features to identify those candidate images in a large database which match the image currently under analysis.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2001
Scalable simulation in a cluster computing environment depends on effective mechanisms for load b... more Scalable simulation in a cluster computing environment depends on effective mechanisms for load balancing. This paper presents an object-oriented software architecture and specifies communication protocols which support efficient load balancing via object migration in cluster based PDES. A general decomposition of functionality is given in the context of a flexible adaptable architecture for migration and load adjustment. The key contributions
Lecture Notes in Computer Science Recent Advances in Parallel Virtual Machine and Message Passing Interface, 2001
Scalable simulation in a cluster computing environment depends on effective mechanisms for load b... more Scalable simulation in a cluster computing environment depends on effective mechanisms for load balancing. This paper presents an object-oriented software architecture and specifies communication protocols which support efficient load balancing via object migration in cluster based PDES. A general decomposition of functionality is given in the context of a flexible adaptable architecture for migration and load adjustment. The key contributions
Spie Proceedings Series, 1997
Geometric hashing provides a reliable and transformation independent representation of a target. ... more Geometric hashing provides a reliable and transformation independent representation of a target. The characterization of a target object is obtained by establishing a vector basis relative to a number of interest points unique to the target. The number of basis points required is a function of the dimensionality of the environment in which the technique is being used. This basis is used to encode the other points in the object constructing a highly general (transformation independent) representation of the target. The representation is invariant under both affine and geometric transformations of the target interest points. Once a representation of the target has been constructed a simple voting algorithm can be used to examine sets of interest points extracted from subsequent image in order to determine the possible presence and location of that target. Once an instance of the object has been located further computation can be undertaken to determine its scale, orientation, and deformation due to changes in the parameters related to the viewpoint. This information can be further analyzed to provide guidance. This paper discusses the complexity measures associated with task division and target image processing using geometric hashing. These measures are used to determine the areas which will most benefit from hardware assistance, and possible parallelism. These issues are discussed in the context of an architecture design, and a high speed (hardware assisted) geometric hashing approach to target recognition is proposed.
Ijcs, 1991
The Prism simulation system models the interaction of application, system and architectural struc... more The Prism simulation system models the interaction of application, system and architectural structures for shared memory multiprocessors and distributed memory multicomputers. The simulation is achieved using two major components, a compiler and a library of processor and architecture modeling routines. The compiler processes application and system code written in a high level language and links the result to the modeling routines to produce a purpose built simulator. The compiler converts the program into a large number of small fragments, called slices, and then compiles the sequence of slices twice. The first compilation targets an abstract model processor and annotates each slice with a list of code and data accesses that would be emitted by the modeled CPU when executing that slice. The second compilation emits a C program from the annotated slices which interacts with a model machine to represent the program's execution on the modeled architecture. The output from compiling an application program is combined with libraries containing similarly compiled run-time and operating systems. The result is a special purpose simulator for the test application running under a particular kernel and executing on a specific architecture. Architectural features such as the number of processors or memory modules, cache algorithms and cache sizes, and network topology and speed can be selected. The use of simulation allows any amount of performance data to be gathered and analyzed on the fly, without disturbing the history of the execution. It also allows for rapid prototyping of architectural features and implementation techniques. This paper discusses the fundamental operation of the simulator and its integration with the associated compiler.
Conference on Emerging Network Experiment and Technology, 2005
We present the design and implementation of the Janus that it contains. This allows us to perform... more We present the design and implementation of the Janus that it contains. This allows us to perform service composition by dynamically combining functions together. In contrast to existing application-specific access techniques, Janus separates the access technique from the sensor network itself by inserting itself between the sensor network and the access network. This attribute allows for application-specific access techniques to
2011 6th International Conference on Industrial and Information Systems, 2011
The adaptive routing protocol recently proposed by researchers for opportunistic networks often m... more The adaptive routing protocol recently proposed by researchers for opportunistic networks often makes an as- sumption that when each node makes an intelligent decision of choosing a best forwarder node to route its messages, the chosen forwarder will often have a large buffer storage and will always altruistically devote its resources for forwarding those messages towards their destination nodes. However,
Newly developed protocols and systems in opportunistic networks need to be validated in large pop... more Newly developed protocols and systems in opportunistic networks need to be validated in large populations over large time periods. Synthetic connectivity traces, generated traces that reproduce device connectivity patterns measured in live experiments, can benefit the research community by providing lower overhead in comparison to large scale field tests for longer periods of time. Generated traces can also be analyzed and compared with field traces to determine if key features are preserved. However, when these traces are applied to testing opportunistic applications, there is no guarantee that the application will behave the same way as it did for the original trace. Factors that can influence the regeneration process and the performance of the application may not be captured by current connectivity models. Consequently, we propose to use a benchmarking application to establish a confidence level for synthetic trace generation methods. In this paper we discuss and present our preliminary results towards benchmarking opportunistic networking experiments and discuss some future directions for research.
The influence of node mobility in Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) is significant and has signific... more The influence of node mobility in Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) is significant and has significant implications for system performance. The difficulty and cost associated with collecting real movement traces has resulted in the use of synthetic mobility models in many simulation studies. Simulations use mobility models to describe how devices move in the geographical (coordinate) space of the simulated deployment environment. Typical mobility models describe the location, speed, direction of movement etc., of mobile entities over time .
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2005
We present an improved method for analyzing route establishment in ad hoc routing protocols. An e... more We present an improved method for analyzing route establishment in ad hoc routing protocols. An efficient abstraction for Propagating Localized Broadcast with Dampening (PLBD) is developed. Applying this result we are able to verify networks and topology changes for ad hoc networks up to the limits currently envisaged for operational mobile ad hoc networks (MANETS). Results are reported for route discovery in the Lightweight Underlay Network Ad hoc Routing protocol (LUNAR) using UPPAAL and we provide an outline of how similar verifications can be conducted for DSR.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2004
Numerous specialized ad hoc routing protocols are currently proposed for use, or being implemente... more Numerous specialized ad hoc routing protocols are currently proposed for use, or being implemented. Few of them have been subjected to formal verification. This paper evaluates two model checking tools, SPIN and UPPAAL, using the verification of the Lightweight Underlay Network Ad hoc Routing protocol (LUNAR) as a case study. Insights are reported in terms of identifying important modeling considerations and the types of ad hoc protocol properties that can realistically be verified.