Katherine Deibel

Team formation methods for increasing interaction during in-class group work

In contrast to the student teams used for larger and longer group projects, in-class groups are often ephemeral, lasting for only a few minutes or until the end of the period. Because of this, little effort is put into forming these groups, usually letting the students self-select their teams. This paper argues that greater student interaction and learning can take place by usinginstructor-selected teams. Two group formation techniques for in-class group work, the latent jigsaw method and grouping students by Felder-Silverman learning styles, are presented. Observations from a classroom deployment of these techniques are also described.

Using edit distance to analyze card sorts

: Card sorts are a knowledge elicitation technique in which participants are given a collection of items and are asked to partition them into groups based on their own criteria. Information about the participants knowledge structure is inferred from the groups formed and the names used to describe the groups through various methods ranging from simple quantitative statistical measures (e.g. co-occurrence frequencies) to complex qualitative methods (e.g. content analysis on the group names). This paper introduces a new technique for analyzing card sort data that uses quantitative measures to discover rich qualitative results. This method is based upon a distance metric between sorts that allows one to measure the similarity of groupings and then look for clusters of closely related sorts across individuals. By using software for computing these clusters, it is possible to identify common concepts across individuals, despite the use of different terminology.

cooperative learning: beyond pair programming and team projects

In traditional college teaching, most class time is spent with the instructor lecturing and students passively listening and taking notes. Homework is done individually, and collaboration is penalized as cheating. Instructor-centric teaching methods have repeatedly been found inferior to cooperative learning, in which students work in teams on problems and projects that foster interdependence while maintaining individual accountability. In recent years, the CS education community has enthusiastically embraced two collaborative-learning practices: pair programming and team projects. But why stop there? Classroom time can be devoted to group exercises, and homework assignments can be arranged so that each student plays a role in educating other members of the class. Cooperative learning has been shown to increase retention and boost the performance of at-risk students. This panel will present cooperative-learning exercises that can be used in any class, without special hardware or proprietary software.

Wikis: collaborative learning for cs education

Wikis may be on track to take the academic world by storm. Though researchers have used them as collaborative tools for more than a decade, it is only in the past year or two that they have become widespread in education. Of the articles published by SIGCSE on wikis, nearly two-thirds (30 out of 46) of them gave appeared since the beginning of 2006. References to wikis in the educational database ERIC are approximately doubling each year. What is it about wikis that has suddenly made them so attractive? Among other things, it is the fact that collaboration becomes so easy. Students have the opportunity to revise each other’s work without the need to send documents back and forth. Because an edit history is kept, it is easy to see how much work each student has done—and to verify that it has not been downloaded from a third-party source on the eve of the due date. Wikis have been used for a wide variety of assignments, from discussion boards to writing a textbook from student contributions. This panel will present several collaborativelearning exercises that have been carried out with wikis, and give advice to instructors who want to use wikis in their classes.

Studying our inclusive practices: course experiences of students with disabilities

Students with disabilities can experience difficulty in receiving an education; inclusive education is an educational practice designed to ameliorate these problems. This paper presents the design for a study of the current inclusivepractices in computer science courses. Challenges in studying the experiences of disabled students are discussed, and a methodology using semi-structured interviews and grounded theory is developed to address these difficulties. A pilot study involving students taking their first computing courses is also described.

Course experiences of computing students with disabilities: four case studies

Inclusive education is the practice of making sure that all students of all abilities have positive learning experiences. The study presented in this paper explores the current state of inclusive practices in computing education by presenting four case studies of students with disabilities taking their first computing courses. Their experiences share many common themes that reveal insights into their college experiences and connect with current theories as to how to achieve inclusive education. New technologies, such as podcasting, for promoting inclusion are also suggested.

Understanding and supporting the use of accommodating technologies by adult learners with reading disabilities

Developing computer accommodations for users with reading disabilities involves several challenges: diversity of needs, stigma risks, and self-advocacy issues. This paper proposes a two-fold approach to address these issues. First, participatory design with reading-disabled users will inform necessary directions for technology development. Second, to help individual users identify what accommodations can benefit them, intelligent software will be developed. This software will also aid in the configuration of the accommodations.

A convenient heuristic model for understanding assistive technology adoption

This short paper presents a generalized heuristic model for understanding various factors that influence the adoption and usage of an assistive technology.

Accessibility and computer science education

Brian J. Rosmaita (Moderator) Department of Computer Science Hamilton College 198 College Hill Road Clinton, NY, USA 13323 brosmait@hamilton.edu Katherine Deibel Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering University of Washington Box 352350 Seattle, WA, USA 98195 deibel@cs.washington.edu Robert F. Cohen Department of Computer Science University of Massachusetts Boston 100 Morrissey Boulevard Boston, MA, USA 02125 rfc@cs.umb.edu Mary Anne L. Egan Department of Computer Science Siena College 515 Loudon Road Loudonville, NY, USA 12211 maegan@siena.edu

Adoption and configuration of assistive technologies: a semiotic engineering perspective

This paper discusses semiotic engineering (a design methodology) and its potential for addressing issues concerning the adoption and configuration of assistive technologies.