Background and Context: Recursion in binary trees has proven to be a hard topic. There was not much research on enhancing student understanding of this topic. Objective: We present a tutorial to enhance learning through practice of recursive operations in binary trees, as it is typically taught post-CS2. Method: We identified the misconceptions…

Recursion is one of the most important and hardest topics in lower division computer science courses. As it is an advanced programming skill, the best way to learn it is through targeted practice exercises. But the best practice problems are time consuming to manually grade by an instructor. As a consequence, students historically have completed…

Two experiments involved an intelligent tutoring system for the Carnegie Mellon University Lisp Tutor using production system theories of transfer and analogical problem solving. Results suggested that acquisition of cognitive skills is facilitated by high degrees of metacognition, which includes higher level monitoring of states of knowledge,…

Four experiments supported the hypothesis that, when learning to use equipment such as computers, if the material to be learned has an intrinsically high degree of interaction between elements, then learning might be facilitated by not having the equipment present. Thus, an analysis of intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load can lead to…