This paper is an experiential report describing the faculty and student experiences and knowledge gained from developing an Internet of Things (IoT) course within an Information Technology (IT) Department at a large southeastern United States public university. The paper contributes insights gained developing the introductory IoT course, and it…

The study of robotics has become a popular course among many educational programs, especially as a technical elective. A significant part of this course involves having the students learn how to program the movement of a robotic arm by controlling the velocity of its individual joint motors, a topic referred to as joint programming. They must…

This dissertation presents the results and outcomes of an effort to design educational tools and curriculum to improve student learning in introductory programming courses. The work was conducted at the University of California, Merced (UC Merced), situated in the Central Valley of California, and home to a diverse student population. The findings…

Providing consistent, individualized feedback to teachers is essential for improving instruction but can be prohibitively resource-intensive in most educational contexts. We develop M-Powering Teachers, an automated tool based on natural language processing to give teachers feedback on their uptake of student contributions, a high-leverage…

With the progress and innovation of digital technology, people's knowledge acquisition, information exchange, and communication modes have changed significantly. The universality of emerging technology media enables instructional designers to use digital media to provide different teaching materials and teaching methods to meet the needs of…

Distributed self-assessments and reflections empower learners to take the lead on their knowledge gaining evaluation. Both provide essential elements for practice and self-regulation in learning settings. Nowadays, many sources for practice opportunities are made available to the learners, especially in the Computer Science (CS) and programming…

This paper summarizes our experience of teaching undergraduate robotic courses in the past ten years. The objective is to introduce students to the fundamental knowledge in robotics. Lecture topics covered subjects in both Autonomous Mobile Robots and Robotic Manipulator. In the lab sessions, students work on physical robots to acquire basic…

Contribution: Portable learning instrumentation has become common in university classrooms and laboratories, but few publications assess the effects of these technologies on student retention. This paper addresses this under-researched connection between the use of portable learning technologies, incorporated into an Introduction to Computer…

Students in introductory computer science courses, are learning to program. Indeed, most students perceive that learning to code is the central topic explored in the courses. Students spend an enormous amount of time struggling to learn the syntax and understand semantics of a particular language. Instructors spend a similar amount of time reading…

Passive learning environments to teach programming concepts, especially in large lecture classes, hinder students' motivation, performance and may adversely affect their achievement goals. The study presents the use of two instructional strategies, teamwork, and reflective thinking, using educational technologies introduced in a class of 120…

Project-based learning often centers learning experiences around projects and is characterized by the application of knowledge, management of resources, and self-directed learning. In recent years, newer classroom designs have been developed to facilitate communication, classroom interaction and active learning but the cost of such spaces can be…

Multimedia instructional tools (MMIT) have been identified as a way effectively and economically present instructional material. MMITs are commonly used in introductory computer applications courses as MMITs should be effective in increasing student knowledge and positively impact motivation and learning strategies, without increasing costs. This…

Research on the effectiveness of introductory programming environments often relies on post-test measures and attitudinal surveys to support its claims; but such instruments lack the ability to identify any explanatory mechanisms that can account for the results. This paper reports on a study designed to address this issue. Using Noss and Hoyles'…

Learning to program is a complex task, and the impact of different pedagogical approaches to teach this skill has been hard to measure. This study examined the performance data of seven cohorts of students (N = 1168) learning programming under three different pedagogical approaches. These pedagogical approaches varied either in the length of the…

Decreasing enrollments, lower rates of student retention and changes in the learning styles of today's students are all issues that the Computer Science (CS) academic community is currently facing. As a result, CS educators are being challenged to find the right blend of technology and pedagogy for their curriculum in order to help students…