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This morning, I updated my webpage format. Then I read over some of the lecture notes and classworks from the cs 04 page. I fully completed the Classwork 18. Since many of us are in the office now, we took some time to discuss the project. Henry began to compile suggestions that Ruthie and Jenna gave, having had Alice as a teaching tool in their CS 04 class. I started to go through Henry's tutorials to make sure they are fully concise and comprehendable. So far, We've made the necessary revisions to several of the tutorials.
Today, I read the article entitled 'Using Visualization To Teach Novices Recursion" The article explored whether or not visualization helps novice programmers develop good intuition about recursion while addressing the question of whether or not this is 'true' recursion. I would expand the question by considering how an understanding of the Alice-type of recursion would influence their development of recursion in Java. Would it really make it less difficult to comprehend the level of abstraction in terms of what occurs with each recursive call?
This morning, I finished revisng Henry's tutorials. Then I began to brainstorm effective ways to approach our work this summer. Since our meeting didn't start at 10, I started to work on another assignment from the cs 04 page. An hour or so later, we met Gaetjens. After our meeting with Professor Rodger, since the five of us were finally all in the office, we had or first group meeting about how to approach this summer. We split our focus into the teacher workshop (examples) and the student camp (tutorials). We used Professor Rodger's idea about developing a standard format for what features tutorials should include. Henry took notes to put on his website as Jenna wrote them on the board. We then split up who would make tutorials and who would make examples today and about what specifically. I am going to make two tutorials for methods and functions. Before I started making my tutorials, I read the article "Exploring the Role of Visualization and Engagement in Computer Science Education." The premise is that experimental studies don't substantiate whether or not visualization is effective for education. Thus, the two obstacles: whether or not visualization technology is educatonally beneficial for the learner, and whether there is too much overhead for the instructor to incorporate visualization technology into the curriculium. The author considers that visualization technology is only of educational value if it actively engages the learner. He looked at eleven points. It was a very helpful article because these are all things we should keep in mind as we work on this project. I think the article asked an excellent question: whether or not more time spent signified gaining a deeper understanding or simply being caught up with the features. The article six different forms of learner engagement: no viewing, viewing, responding, changing, constructing and presenting. I think I will keep these categories in mind as I develop tutorials and example worlds. In his research, looked at other factors that could effect whether or not the learner improved. Overall, I thought this was a great article. I'm interested in seeing some of the findings of later studies that were framed in this way.
This morning, I walked through the gardens with Gaetjens to show him how to get to west campus. Today, I am going to work on my tutorials for methods and functions. After we ate lunch, Professor Astrachan gave us a presentation about problem-centered learning as an approach to teaching computer science. There were a lot of interesting issues brought up during the discussion. The article I read was "Objects: Visualization of Behavior and State." It was an older article, which basically suggested that Alice was a good tool for helping students comprehend objects. It's taking me much longer than I thought it would to make two tutorials.
Today, I started the day by brainstorming a few ideas for example worlds I would like to create. I also completing the outline for my methods tutorial. I finished making the world for my method tutorial. Then I showed it to Professor Rodger. For the rest of the day, I continued working on the tutorials as I periodically checked over things that Henry and Ruthie were working on. I'm almost finished with the methods. I've put a link on my homepage to the draft of my first tutorial. I still have to revise some of the description and add the screenshots. If it becomes too long, I might split things up.
I made the screenshots for the methods tutorial. 'Snag it' is a great tool for making screenshots. I looked over the language game that Ruthie made. Also, at Henry's request, I looked over Alice 2.2. For some reason, the world does not play sometimes. I have completed the methods tutorial. However, no one had a chance to look over it yet. And I'm not quite happy with the size of the screenshots. Depending on my coworkers feedback, I might split the tutorial into two. For the rest of the day, I took a break from making tutorials to read over the materials for the teachers workshop