Challenging the advanced first-year student's learning process through student presentations

  • Authors:

  • Lisa C. Kaczmarczyk;Matthew R. Boutell;Mary Z. Last

  • Affiliations:

  • University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA;Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, IN;University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, Belton, TX

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the third international workshop on Computing education research
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

The decline in computing enrollments is a global concern that necessitates that every potentially successful computing student be targeted for support and development. The needs of technically experienced, highly capable first-term college students are unique, and no less challenging than the needs of their lesser-prepared peers. In order to attract advanced first-year students to further computing studies, we need to understand better how instruction can meet their needs. This paper reports the results of a study in which advanced first-term computing students were challenged to become in-depth researcher-learners and to teach the content they acquired to their peers. The results demonstrate that students and instructors alike perceive that the students made significant improvements in communication, presentation, and teaming skills and acquired deep content knowledge from their experience in the course. The data also show that students were extremely uncomfortable with the paradigm shift in their learning environment. These results suggest that anxiety-reducing changes are needed for the course, but that overall, the teacher-researcherlearner concept is very beneficial for increasing the understanding and learning of advanced first year computing students.