What’s the problem?: Teachers’ experience of student learning successes and failures (original) (raw)
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Instructional Science, 2011
This study demonstrates the power of the cultural encounter metaphor in explaining learning and teaching difficulties, using as an example computer science education (CSE). CSE is envisioned as an encounter between veterans of two computeroriented cultures, that of the teachers and that of the students. Forty questionnaires administered to CS teachers, as well as in-depth interviews with four leading CS teachers, revealed those teachers perceived their students as having a different perspective on the domain, on what constitutes a beneficial approach to problem-solving and on the nature of satisfactory solutions. In fact, the teachers portrayed their teaching as a continual battle in which their success is limited. Yet, their instruction was characterized as a composite of enforcement and compromise, with few and isolated attempts at building on students' cultural capital. The cultural encounter metaphor, while still viewing students as novices to the professional CS culture represented by their teachers, emphasizes that good teaching requires building upon students' cultural capital to create zones of fertile cultural encounter.
Through the eyes of instructors
Proceedings of the third international workshop on Computing education research - ICER '07, 2007
In this paper we present a phenomenographic analysis of computer science instructors' perceptions of student success. The factors instructors believe influence student success fell into five categories which were related to: 1) the subject being taught, 2) intrinsic characteristics of the student, 3) student background, 4) student attitudes and behaviour and 5) instructor influence on student development. These categories provide insights not only into how instructors perceive students, but also how they perceive their own roles in the learning process. We found significant overlap between these qualitative results, obtained through analysis of semi-structured interviews, and the vast body of quantitative research on factors predicting student success. Studying faculty rather than students provides an alternative way to examine these questions, and using qualitative methods may provide a richer understanding of student success factors.
Understanding Sources of Student Struggle in Early Computer Science Courses
2021
Computer science students struggle in early computing courses as evinced by high failure rates and poor retention. As such, studies have attempted to characterize the root of student struggles from many perspectives, including cognitive, meta-cognitive, and social emotional. Typically, studies have limited their inquiry to a specific perspective or a single course. This paper reports the results of a broad student experience survey conducted across several computer science courses. Through a periodic survey, students rated various cognitive, socio-emotional, external, personal, and structural barriers in terms of how much each impacted their learning throughout the term. An exploratory factor analysis of these questions revealed four factors-personal obligations, lack of sense of belonging, in-class confusion, and lack of confidence-that capture a range of possible struggles students may face. We analyzed the prevalence of these factors across courses, performance quartiles, and demographic groups broken down by gender, race/ethnicity, and matriculation status. Students in lower performance quartiles report higher stress levels on multiple factors, with statistically significant differences found between all quartiles and courses, for most factors. Moreover, students from traditionally underrepresented groups report struggling more across all four factors, suggesting that they may be facing more challenges than classmates from represented populations. Overall, these findings indicate that student struggles are associated with stresses from many areas of their lives, suggesting that future interventions should target multiple areas of stress. CCS CONCEPTS • Social and professional topics → Computing Education.
Proceedings of the 13th Annual Conference, 2008
We present a framework for articulating learning difficulties in computer science (CS) based on the socio-cultural theoretical idea that learning means entering a culture. In school, teachers and students participate in two cultures simultaneously: (1) school and (2) the domain studied. CS students are members of a third culture, computer users and thus, in CS lessons, three cultural viewpoints are employed simultaneously, which might recast students' understanding of CS with ungenuine-CS elements. The power of this framework was demonstrated in a three-phase investigation into difficulties regarding correctness using questionnaires. The first two phases revealed how both school and the user's culture nurture students' misconceptions of correctness, which contribute to students' inadequate work habits. The third phase exposed teachers' dual viewpoint on a programming activity, which students can misinterpret as agreement with their (mis)understanding of the concept.
Causes of Failure of Students in Computer Programming Courses: The Teacher – Learner Perspective
There are many factors that influence the high rate of failure of students in computer programming courses. This paper focuses on the teaching methodologies and strategies that are implemented in teaching programming courses. This is a major factor for consideration; hence an investigation into the causes of failure of students in programming courses from the learner perspective with regard to the teaching methodology used by teachers to teach these courses is relevant. Programming courses form part of the core concentration areas for students especially studying Information Technology (IT) and Computer Science (CS) as an undergraduate degree program. Programming students are expected to demonstrate competencies in the principles of programming and logic that are being taught in the course; even though some of these concepts are highly abstract and complex. Their opinions to the usefulness of the teaching methods being implemented in programming courses were sought for. The needs and concerns about the teaching methods are highlighted in the survey and discussed thereby leading to the making of suggestions about the ways to improve the teaching methods that are used in computer programming courses in order to improve understanding of programming, when studied by students thereby minimizing failure rates.
Cognition and Instruction
When teachers, researchers, and students describe productively responding to moments of failure in the learning process, what might this mean? Blending prior theoretical and empirical research on the relationship between failure and learning, and empirical results from four data sets that are part of a larger design-based research project, we investigate the heterogeneous processes teachers and students value and pursue following moments in which computer bugs thwart their immediate progress on an activity. These include: (1) resolving moments of failure; (2) avoiding recurring failures; (3) preparing for novel failures; (4) engaging with authority; and (5) calibrating confidence/ efficacy. We investigate these processes taking into account the personal, social, and material context in which students and teachers collaborate when encountering broken computer programs, in addition to teachers' planning efforts and the community's reflections on past debugging experiences. We argue that moments of failure are not simply occasions for seeking resolutions. They are points of departure for decisions about how and what to foreground and interleave among a range of valued processes. Overall, this study aims to support research on the heterogeneous processes that shape how students new to a discipline such as computer programming respond to getting stuck. Learning trajectories are commonly punctuated by stretches of difficulty. In the research literature, they are variably described as impasses (VanLehn, 1988), breakdowns (Koschmann et al., 1998), snags (Lave et al., 1984), and/or failures (Kapur, 2008), and they can drive long-term learning (Kapur, 2016; Sinha & Kapur, 2021). Acknowledging this potential, in this paper, we investigate the heterogeneous processes teachers and students value and pursue following moments in which their immediate progress on an activity is thwarted by friction, problems, obstacles, etc. To lead with a student's perspective on these processes, we highlight sixth grade Zoa's 1 reflections on debugging during a two-week Summer computer science (CS) workshop. Zoa's reflections during and following coding sessions, including in the art piece featured below (see Figure 1), cover substantial ground. Across the two weeks, instead of attending to a single process following moments of failure, Zoa comments on self-efficacy ("I'm slowly dying. I got this," "doubted myself"), strategies for debugging ("compared my work," "experiment with my code"), collaboration ("my
Exploring and Understanding Pupils’ Lack of Perseverance and Autonomy With Debugging in Computing
2020
The National Curriculum for Computing in England expects that primary-school-aged pupils (5- to 11-year-olds) will be able to correct programming errors in age-appropriate contexts (DfE) 2013). This correction of errors in computing is known as debugging. Utilising a broadly autoethnographic approach, this paper draws upon the writer’s positionality as a computing teacher in primary school and as a teacher educator in a university-based setting. Reflecting upon experiences of teaching computing (specifically debugging) to primary school pupils, the paper goes on to outline and explore potential reasons for pupils’ lack of perseverance and autonomy when engaged with debugging activities. Ideas around learnt helplessness and cognitive load theory are analysed as potential barriers to pupils’ progress when it comes to debugging. The reflective process concludes with suggestions to further develop pupils’ independence with debugging activities, as well as considering the importance of t...
In this research, a study was conducted to investigate and explore the views of students for the failure and difficulties they faced in learning fundamental programming courses. There are many factors that influence the high rate of failure of students in most computer programming courses. This paper focuses on the teaching and learning methodologies and strategies that are implemented in the teaching of all computer programming courses. This is a major factor for consideration; hence an investigation into the causes of failure of students in most computer programming courses from all perspectives with regard to the teaching methodology used by teachers to teach these courses is a relevant and very important concept. Most computer programming courses form part of the core concentration areas for students especially studying in the school of computing and informatics as an undergraduate degree program. All computer programming students are expected to prove capabilities in the principles of programming and logic that are being taught in the courses; even though some of these concepts are highly intellectual and multifaceted. Their opinions on the usefulness of the teaching methods being implemented in computer programming courses were required. The needs and concerns about the teaching and learning methods are highlighted in the study and discussed thereby leading to the making of suggestions about the ways to improve the teaching and learning methods that are used in computer programming courses in order to advance understanding of computer programming when studied by students thereby minimizing failure rates of those students.
This paper focuses on the approaches used by Computer Science (CS) teachers to teach CS concepts at the higher level of secondary education and especially in Grades 10-12. It is based on a case study where twenty five CS teachers in Greece were observed teaching CS concepts in the classroom. The focus of the observation was on a variety of specific teacher interventions such as: a) how students’ previous knowledge was investigated and how this knowledge was connected with the new learning concepts in focus, b) the kind of activities proposed by the teacher, c) the kind of communication taking place, d) how the students’ mistakes were handled, e) how many students were involved in each lesson, f) the kind of motivation used to involve students in each specific teaching session, g) the learning media used and h) summary and abstraction of the main learning aspects of each lesson. Based on these data, 7 specific CS teaching profiles were formed.
Teaching Delivery Issues: Lessons from Computer Science
Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 2002
Information Technology (IT) is a subject that is distinct from Computer Science (CS), but is often taught by CS faculty; there is a large overlap between the content of curricula for the two subjects. In this paper, we discuss some of the issues and problems experienced within CS that are also of relevance to the IT educator. We discuss the effects of student and faculty expectations along with curricular issues, and we conclude that setting student expectations and aligning them with our own at as early a stage as possible is crucial to success. Expectations Students: Students arrive at University from a much broader range of backgrounds than previously; they may be mature or have experienced a non-traditional education. When they draw upon their past experiences to help interpret this new environment they are drawing upon scenarios that many faculty have not experienced. Many students also arrive with different expectations regarding higher education. In some cases, the benefit of a degree with the correct title far outweighs any thirst for particular knowledge. Faculty: Many faculty members previously qualified in a different subject; they want to teach CS and don't want to teach IT; they find it difficult to recognize students' lack of domain understanding which is a required underpinning; they expect their implicit expectations to be noted and acted upon by students without making them explicit. Teaching Delivery Issues 78 learning is an excellent way to boost confidence before we can expect any deep learning to occur. Transferable skills: Many useful transferable skills can be employed within the IT curriculum. Here we discuss some of the more profitable and successful along with guidelines for replication.