Altering CS perceptions (original) (raw)

Proceedings of the 51st ACM Southeast Conference on - ACMSE '13, 2013

Abstract

ABSTRACT We report the most recent findings of our CS education initiative to teach core programming principles to middle and high school students through the use of personal robots. The program was focused on the use of web-based educational tutorials, in conjunction with personal robots, to deliver program content. This web-centered approach allowed ten local teachers to work with 147 students via robotics clubs in five local middle and high schools. The term culminated with a robotics programming showcase and competition, of which twenty-six of the participating students were able to attend. At the showcase, the students were assessed on attitude, perception, and content knowledge. The results of the attitude and perception assessment showed significant increases in motivation to succeed, confidence in learning programming with the robots, and intention to persist in a STEM-based program. The results of the content knowledge assessment indicated that the high school students scored significantly higher than their middle school counterparts and provided valuable insights to guide future educational materials development to produce higher degrees of learning and retention.

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