Experience report: CS1 in MATLAB for non-majors, with media computation and peer instruction

  • Authors:

  • Cynthia Bailey Lee

  • Affiliations:

  • University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceeding of the 44th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

As computer programming is increasingly considered an essential literacy skill for all students, MATLAB courses in particular can play a role in introducing non-major students to a tool commonly used in many of their fields. This paper reports on our department's experience introducing a CS1 in MATLAB for non-majors course. The course assumed no prior programming experience and no training in linear algebra. Without linear algebra and without the ability to do domain-specific tailoring, we turned to Media Computation to contextualize the skills and motivate students. Media Computation is an approach to programming instruction that focuses on manipulation of visual, audio, and video media. The course design also featured the Peer Instruction lecture format, in which lectures are punctuated by frequent questions that students answer individually and in small groups. To our knowledge, this represents the first time that Media Computation and Peer Instruction pedagogies have been comprehensively adapted to a MATLAB course. This work shares selected materials designed for this course, and reports outcomes of the two terms the course has been offered.