In recent years, small-scale studies have suggested that we may be able to substantially strengthen children's general cognitive abilities and intelligence quotient (IQ) scores using a relational operant skills training program (SMART). Only one of these studies to date has included an active Control Condition, and that study reported the smallest…

The value of an instructor is that she exactly recognizes what the learner is struggling with and provides constructive feedback straight to the point. This work aims at a step towards this type of feedback in the context of an introductory programming course, where students perform program execution tracing to align their understanding of Java…

Understanding data structures is fundamental for mastering algorithms. In order to solve problems and tasks, students must be able to choose the most appropriate data structure in which the data is stored and that helps in the process of the solution. Of course, there is no single correct solution, but in many cases, it is an important step to…

Background: Peer evaluation in software engineering (SE) project courses enhances the learning experience of students. It also helps instructors monitor and assess both teams and individual students. Peer evaluations might influence the way individual students and teams work; therefore, the quality of the peer evaluations should be tracked through…

Purpose: Debates are well known to encompass a variety of skills we would like higher education candidates to embody when they graduate. Design/methodology/approach: Debates in a classroom with computer science as the main subject has been popular in high schools particularly with emerging issues around the area, however it does not have as an…

Theories on learning show that formative feedback that is immediate, specific, corrective, and positive is essential to improve novice students' motivation and learning. However, most prior work on programming feedback focuses on highlighting student's mistakes, or detecting failed test cases after they submit a solution. In this article, we…

The Computational Thinking (CT) teaching approach allows students to practice problem-solving in a way that they can use the Computer Science mindset. In this sense, Collaborative Learning has a lot to contribute to educational activities involving the CT. This article presents the design and evaluation of a Collaborative Learning framework for…

Computer science is a fast-growing field in today's digitized age, and working in this industry often requires creativity and innovative thought. An issue within computer science education, however, is that large introductory programming courses often involve little opportunity for creative thinking within coursework. The undergraduate…

To help novice learners overcome the obstacles of learning computational thinking (CT) through programming, it is vital to identify difficult CT components. This study aimed to determine the computational concepts and practices that learners may have difficulties acquiring and discuss how programming instructions should be designed to facilitate…

Purpose: Much remains unknown about how young children orient to computational objects and how we as learning scientists can orient to young children as computational thinkers. While some research exists on how children learn programming, very little has been written about how they learn the technical skills needed to operate technologies or to…

We present a detailed yet easy-to-follow discussion of the mathematical treatment of time-resolved spectroscopic data in a model-based approach. This is accompanied and complemented by an example of a colorful and pedagogically rich chemical reaction: the permanganate oxidation of sugars in basic aqueous media (often known as the chameleon…

With the growing desire to incorporate data science and informatics into STEM curricula, there is an opportunity to integrate research-based software and tools (e.g., Python) within existing pedagogical methods to craft new, accessible learning experiences. We show how the open-source Jupyter Book software can achieve this goal by creating a…

Computer programming has become an essential part of K12 education, promoted as a way for students to engage in computational thinking that helps develop students' ability to analyze and solve problems and prepare them for future careers. Tabletop board games are seen as an effective means to help students learn computer programming. Several board…

Adding gaming elements to conventional teaching methodologies has gained a lot of attention because of its ability to incorporate an engaging, motivating, and fun-based environment. As a result, learners' dedication and performance are also better. Unfortunately, current gamification models do not consider the effect of different levels of…

This study aims to investigate students' computational thinking (CT) through mathematical tasks integrated with programming in Scratch. Participants completed four tasks that required students to solve coding problems, which were focused on prime numbers and the prime factorization algorithm. The study was designed as a case study and the unit of…