Background & context: Inspired by the nature-cultures of belonging from Black hair care, we conducted a design experiment to bridge computer science (CS) education, urban gardening, and cosmetology in a culturally responsive computing (CRC) library program. Objective: The design was oriented around a small-scale aquaponics system to grow mint…

Background and Context: Assessing team members' indivdiual contributions to software development projects poses a key problem for computing instructors. While instructors typically rely on subjective assessments, objective assessments could provide a more robust picture. To explore this possibility, In a 2020 paper, Buffardi presented a…

Background and Context: While assessment of computational thinking concepts, practices, and perspectives is at the forefront of K-12 CS education, supporting student "communication about computation" has received relatively little attention. Objective: To examine the usability of process-based portfolios for capturing students'…

Background and Context: GitHub has been recently used in Software Engineering (SE) classes to facilitate collaboration in student team projects as well as help teachers to evaluate the contributions of their students more objectively. Objective: We explore the benefits and drawbacks of using GitHub as a means for team collaboration and performance…

Background and Context: Making is celebrated for bringing exciting tools and learning opportunities to non-traditional designers. However, people with disabilities may find themselves excluded from many making activities and makerspaces. This exclusion is present in making and computer science more broadly. Objective: We describe a university…

Background and Context: Physical computing involves complex negotiations of multiple, on and off-screen tasks, which calls for research on how to best structure collaborative work to ensure equitable learning. Objective: We focus on how pairs self-organized their multi-domain tasks in physical computing, and how their social interactions supported…

There is a pressing need for gender inclusive approaches to engage young people in computer science. A recent popular approach has been to harness learners' enthusiasm for computer games to motivate them to learn computer science concepts through game authoring. This article describes a study in which 992 learners across 13 schools took part in a…

Regardless of the course topic, every instructor in a computing field endeavors to engage their students in deep problem-solving and critical thinking. One of the specific learning outcomes throughout our computer science curriculum is the development of independent, capable problem solving--and we believe good pedagogy can bring such about. Our…

A senior project course is often employed to expose students to industrial problems and teamwork. Students are expected to use industrial strength tools to deal with issues such as requirements, design, process models, collaboration, management, testing, maintenance and more. In addition, the senior project often plays a large role in satisfying…

This article reports on the use of a virtual world ("Second Life") in computing education, and identifies the precursors of current virtual world systems. The article reviews the potential for virtual worlds as tools in computing education. It describes two areas where "Second Life" has been used in computing education: as a…

Model-driven software development (MDSD) aims to support the development and evolution of software intensive systems using the basic concepts of model, metamodel, and model transformation. In parallel with the ongoing academic research, MDSD is more and more applied in industrial practices. After being accepted both by a broad community of…

As part of the CETL ALiC initiative (Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning: Active Learning in Computing), undergraduate computing science students at Newcastle and Durham universities participated in a cross-site team software development project. To ensure we offer adequate resources to support this collaboration, we conducted an…

This paper investigates the links between the "contributing student pedagogy" and other forms of peer-mediated learning models, e.g. "open-ended group projects" and "communities of practice." We find that a fundamental concern in each of these models is the attribution of "value"; specifically, recognition…

Project MLeXAI [Machine Learning eXperiences in Artificial Intelligence (AI)] seeks to build a set of reusable course curriculum and hands on laboratory projects for the artificial intelligence classroom. In this article, we describe two game-based projects from the second phase of project MLeXAI: Robot Defense--a simple real-time strategy game…

Students learn better when they both hear and do. In computer architecture courses "doing" can be difficult in small schools without hardware laboratories hosted by computer engineering, electrical engineering, or similar departments. Software solutions exist. Our success with George Mills' Multimedia Logic (MML) is the focus of this paper. MML…