This study explores student perceptions of learning to code by evaluating AI-generated Python code. In an experimental exercise given to students in an introductory Python course at a business university, students wrote their own solutions to a Python program and then compared their solutions with AI-generated code. They evaluated both solutions…

Concurrency is a complex to learn topic that is becoming more and more relevant, such that many undergraduate Computer Science curricula are introducing it in introductory programming courses. This paper investigates the combined use of Sonic Pi and Team-Based Learning to mitigate the difficulties in early exposure to concurrency. Sonic Pi, a…

Block-based programming languages (BBLs) have been proposed as a way to prepare students for learning to program in more sophisticated, text-based languages, such as Java. Hybrid BBLs add the ability to view and edit the block commands in auto-generated, text-based code. We compared the use of a non-hybrid BBL (Scratch), a hybrid BBL (Pencil…

Our first year biomedical engineering course exposes students to multiple engineering and design techniques within an overarching theme of understanding health inequity. Currently, the semester-long curriculum excludes computational methods such as Python programming and Machine Learning, which are usually not introduced until more advanced BME…

The COVID-19 pandemic and shift to remote instruction disrupted students' learning and well-being. This study explored undergraduates' incoming course concerns and later perceived challenges in an introductory statistics course. We explored how the frequency of concerns changed with the onset of COVID-19 (N=1417) and, during COVID-19, how incoming…

Metacognition and self-regulation are important skills for successful learning and have been discussed and researched extensively in the general education literature for several decades. More recently, there has been growing interest in understanding how metacognitive and self-regulatory skills contribute to student success in the context of…

SCRATCH, developed by the Media Lab at MIT, is a kid-friendly visual programming language, designed to introduce programming to children and teens in a "more thinkable, more meaningful, and more social" way. Although it was initially intended for K-12 students, educators have used it for higher education as well, and found it…

Over the last decade, course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been recognized as a way to improve undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education by engaging students in authentic discovery. CUREs have been shown to have positive benefits similar to traditional undergraduate research experiences;…

Aim/Purpose: This study seeks to understand the various ways information systems (IS) students experience introductory programming to inform IS educators on effective pedagogical approaches to teaching programming. Background: Many students who choose to major in information systems (IS), enter university with little or no experience of learning…

Teaching an introductory programming course to an average of 40 students while monitoring their performance can be a challenge for instructors. Preparing coding exercises with test cases and checking students' programs can prove to be time consuming at times. Moreover, programming has been known to be quite difficult for students to learn. To…

Software is an integral part of our lives. It controls the cars we drive every day, the ships we send into space, and even our toasters. It is everywhere and we can easily download more. Software solves many real-world problems and satisfies many needs. Thus, unsurprisingly, there is a rising demand for software engineers to maintain existing…

A growing body of research has shown a positive role of task-supported instruction in second language (L2) learning (Ellis, 2003a; Loewen, 2015; Van Den Branden, 2006). From a pedagogical perspective, recycling or repeating parts of teaching materials is common practice and theoretical support for such practice is emerging (Bygate and Samuda,…

Purpose: This paper aims to argue that the process of making an original game develops digital literacy skills and provides an authentic learning experience as students create, publish and deploy interactive games. Teaching students to create computer games has become common in both K-12 and tertiary education to introducing programming concepts,…

Recent research supports the benefit of students' construction of relevance through writing about the connection of content to their life. However, most such research defines relevance narrowly as utility value--perceived instrumentality of the content to the student's career goals. Furthermore, the scope of phenomenological and conceptual…

This article is based on the experiences of two statistics professors who have taught students to write and effectively utilize code-based software in a college-level introductory statistics course. Advantages of using software and code-based software in this context are discussed. Suggestions are made on how to ease students into using code with…