CAREER: Physical Representations of Programming Concepts

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

The University of Illinois seeks to improve the teaching and learning of computer science (CS) and contribute to our understanding of representation use across disciplines. Physical (3D) and written (2D) representations are essential tools for building students’ conceptual understanding and are supported by a rich body of research outside of CS education. The inattention to representations in CS education research limits opportunities for effective CS education. This project addresses whether and how high school and college students learn from physical versus written representations of programming concepts. Throughout the project, the researchers will collaborate with and provide direct support to teachers in Los Angeles and Chicago. This project will support other efforts in computing by preparing high school and college teachers to better support students’ conceptual understanding of CS. Increasing understanding and use of physical representations of programming concepts can transform the teaching of CS and its learnability. This project includes six mixed-methods studies in which students are randomly assigned to an instructional sequence with physical representations, written representations, or only code. The instructional sequence and physical representations will be refined through classroom practice, and publications will provide examples of practice and document high school teachers’ insights. These studies will contribute theoretical and empirical evidence for the use of physical representations as a tool to build conceptual knowledge in CS while both drawing on and contributing to related work in other disciplines. To guide the development of new representations in CS, this project will create principles for designing and using representations to teach programming concepts. Building upon a previously funded NSF project, CSTeachingTips.org, this project will develop a taxonomy of methods for teaching specific CS topics to inspire and guide later research. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.