Briana B. Morrison

Measuring cognitive load in introductory CS: adaptation of an instrument

A students capacity to learn a concept is directly related to how much cognitive load is used to comprehend the material. The central problem identified by Cognitive Load Theory is that learning is impaired when the total amount of processing requirements exceeds the limited capacity of working memory. Instruction can impose three different types of cognitive load on a students working memory: intrinsic load, extraneous load, and germane load. Since working memory is a fixed size, instructional material should be designed to minimize the extraneous and intrinsic loads in order to increase the amount of memory available for the germane load. This will improve learning. To effectively design instruction to minimize cognitive load we must be able to measure the specific load components for any pedagogical intervention. This paper reports on a study that adapts a previously developed instrument to measure cognitive load. We report on the adaptation of the instrument to a new discipline, introductory computer science, and the results of measuring the cognitive load factors of specific lectures. We discuss the implications for the ability to measure specific cognitive load components and use of the tool in future studies.

Subgoals, Context, and Worked Examples in Learning Computing Problem Solving

Recent empirical results suggest that the instructional material used to teach computing may actually overload students cognitive abilities. Better designed materials may enhance learning by reducing unnecessary load. Subgoal labels have been shown to be effective at reducing the cognitive load during problem solving in both mathematics and science. Until now, subgoal labels have been given to students to learn passively. We report on a study to determine if giving learners subgoal labels is more or less effective than asking learners to generate subgoal labels within an introductory CS programming task. The answers are mixed and depend on other features of the instructional materials. We found that student performance gains did not replicate as expected in the introductory CS task for those who were given subgoal labels. Computer science may require different kinds of problem-solving or may generate different cognitive demands than mathematics or science.

Khan academy gamifies computer science

Gamification is the buzzword for adding gaming elements such as points or badges to learning experiences to make them more engaging and to increase motivation. In this paper we explore how Khan Academy has incorporated gaming elements into its CS learning platform. By mapping the literature on motivational processes to popular games we critically analyze how successful Khan Academy is at gamifying their site.

Subgoals Help Students Solve Parsons Problems

We report on a study that used subgoal labels to teach students how to write while loops with a Parsons problem learning assessment. Subgoal labels were used to aid learning of programming while not overloading students cognitive abilities. We wanted to compare giving learners subgoal labels versus asking learners to generate subgoal labels. As an assessment for learning we asked students to solve a Parsons problem -- to place code segments in the correct order. We found that students who were given subgoal labels performed statistically better than the groups that did not receive subgoal labels or were asked to generate subgoal labels. We conclude that a low cognitive load assessment, Parsons problems, can be more sensitive to student learning gains than traditional code generation problems.

Adapting the disciplinary commons model for high school teachers: improving recruitment, creating community

The Disciplinary Commons (DC) is a model of teacher professional development that encourages members of the group to reflect upon their teaching practices, develop a community, and, more broadly, to become more scholarly about their teaching. The DC involves a series of monthly meetings where university faculty members examine their course in detail while producing a course portfolio. Evaluation of the early DCs suggests that they successfully created a sense of community and sharing among the participants. We have adapted the original model to a new audience, high school computing teachers. The adapted model maintains the key aspects of the original model while adding two new, important goals for this new audience: improving recruitment and creating community. The high school teacher audience particularly needed strategies for recruiting students and was in greater need of community. We present evaluation evidence suggesting that we achieved the design goals in a replicable model, including a substantial increase (over 300%) in recruiting students.

Requirements and design strategies for open source interactive computer science eBooks

Online education supported by digital courseware will radically alter higher education in ways that we cannot predict. New technologies such as MOOCs and Khan Academy have generated interest in new models for knowledge delivery. The nature of Computer Science content provides special opportunities for computer-supported delivery in both traditional and online classes. Traditional CS textbooks are likely to be replaced by online materials that tightly integrate content with visualizations and automatically assessed exercises. We refer to these new textbook-like artifacts as icseBooks (pronounced ice books), for interactive computer science electronic books. IcseBook technology will in turn impact the pedagogy used in CS courses. This report surveys the state of the field, addresses new use cases for CS pedagogy with icseBooks, and lays out a series of research questions for future study.

Analysis of Interactive Features Designed to Enhance Learning in an Ebook

Educational psychology findings indicate that active processing (such as self-testing) is more effective for learning than passive reading or even rereading. Electronic books (ebooks) can include much more than static pictures and text. Ebooks can promote better learning by increasing the readers interaction with the material through multi-modal learning supports, worked examples, and low cognitive load practice activities. For example, multiple choice questions with immediate feedback can help identify misconceptions and gaps in knowledge. Parsons problems, which are mixed up code segments that have to be put in the correct order, require learners to think about the order of the statements in a solution without having to worry about syntax errors. Our research group has been applying concepts from educational psychology to make learning from ebooks more effective and efficient. This paper reports on an observational study and log file analysis on the use of an ebook that incorporates interactive activities. We provide evidence that learners engaged in the interactive activities, but used some types of activities more than others. We also found evidence that learners encountered some desirable difficulties which can improve learning. This descriptive study informs a research agenda to improve the quality of instruction in computing education.

Identifying Design Principles for CS Teacher Ebooks through Design-Based Research

Several countries are trying to provide access to computing education for all secondary students. However, there are not enough teachers who are prepared to teach computer science. Interactive electronic books (ebooks) are a promising approach for providing low-cost professional development in computer science. Over the last four years, our research group has been conducting design-based research by iteratively developing and testing versions of a teacher ebook to help secondary teachers with no programming experience learn to teach an introductory programming course. The interactive elements in the ebook were designed based on research results from educational psychology and are intended to make learning more efficient and effective. Our goals for this effort are to increase teachers knowledge of computer science concepts and to improve teachers confidence in their ability to teach computer science. In this paper we summarize our previous work and report on a large-scale study of version two of the teacher ebook. We also recommend several design principles for interactive ebooks for computing teachers based on feedback from teachers, log file analyses, and randomized controlled studies.

Usability and Usage of Interactive Features in an Online Ebook for CS Teachers

There are too few secondary school computing teachers to meet international needs for growing secondary school computing education. Our group has created an ebook to help prepare secondary teachers to teach the programming and big data concepts in the new AP Computer Science Principles course. The ebook was designed using principles from educational psychology, specifically worked examples and cognitive load. The ebook interleaves worked examples and interactive practice activities, which we believe will lead to more efficient and effective learning than more typical approaches to learning programming. This paper reports the results from initial studies of our ebook. First, we conducted a usability study comparing three different ebook platforms. Next, we conducted a study of teacher use of the ebook. Ten teachers worked through the first eight chapters of the ebook at their own pace. Five of the ten teachers completed the first eight chapters which is a 50% completion rate. Significantly, teachers who used more of the interactive features in the ebook did better on the post-tests and reported higher confidence in their ability to teach the material than teachers who used few of the interactive features.

Computer Science Is Different!: Educational Psychology Experiments Do Not Reliably Replicate in Programming Domain

My research explores how learning computer science, specifically programming, differs from learning math or science in relation to educational psychological principles. I have replicated well established experiments from the science and math domains by using instructional design techniques that minimize the cognitive load imposed on the learner. Instead of receiving the expected results confirming that the educational psychology principles also apply to computing, I received unexpected results contrary to the original hypotheses which indicate that merely adapting these principles to a new domain is not enough. I seek to understand what differences exist in learning programming, as compared to the other problem solving domains that explain the confusing experimental results I obtained.