Problem Solving in Community: A Necessary Shift in CS Pedagogy

Several times in my research I've noticed conclusions that stated that women do not like to program games. This intrigued me so I thought I would research just a bit on some women studies regarding gaming in CS1.

Problem Solving in Community: A Necessary Shift in CS Pedagogy

Sarah Monisha Pulimood
Department of Computer Science
The College of New Jersey

Ursula Wolz
Computer Science and Interactive Multimedia
The College of New Jersey

http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1360000/1352209/p210-pulimood.pdf?key1=1352209&key2=1767099321&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=31476945&CFTOKEN=33370313

The authors’ noted, “Supporting a workforce that can create, not simply consume, computing technology requires a shift in pedagogy toward problem solving in a gender neutral, culturally and ethnically diverse community. It requires an authentic learning environment in which students solve real problems as a collaborative community with their peers from other disciplines.”

One study mentioned in this article noted that, in general, women were drawn more to a curriculum that utilizes real-world uses – not just the dry, mathematical problems or male-oriented applications like sports statistics and missile trajectories.

In one of my previous posts, I noted that when students are asked to choose between two assignments, one that is typically considered to be ‘traditional, male-oriented’ and one that is set in a more real-world context, that women almost always selected the “real-world” assignment. There appears to be no selection bias among males.

The authors’ noted that in earlier semesters when students typically proposed and implemented games-based projects, their feedback at the end of the semester included positive commentary on the communication and teamwork skills they had gained (in addition to the usual technical skills) but not much on their satisfaction levels.

Only after they were discouraged from games-based projects and were encouraged to implement other types of interesting projects, there was a marked increase in feedback on the satisfaction with the project work experience, all of it positive.

The authors’ stated, “It is clear from this experience that students, regardless of race or gender, respond favorably to assignments that are real-world and need-based.”

Another factor that comes into satisfaction is the amount of time spent outside of class that is needed to complete an assignment. Students were asked at the onset of class to estimate the time needed outside of class they would spend on the course. The average estimate was 3 hours.

At the end of the course, students were asked how much time they actually committed to the class. The average estimate was just over 7 hours.

Furthermore 87% of the students overall rate the experience as valuable.

On an interesting side note, the authors detailed a small study that combined students from different disciplines, such as computer science and education together to create educational games. Each registered for separate courses within their discipline. Faculty from these disciplines would give reciprocal guest lectures and assign collaborative projects with the expectation that the students would meet between classes.

According to the authors, the primary outcome was the discovery that students found countless ways to avoid collaboration outside class! In addition, the most common complaint from the students was that students from the other classes did not attend meetings, and they themselves “did all the work”.

Priceless!

My Thoughts

According to my previous research, I was concerned that if I introduced gaming into my CS1 class, that the women in the class may not find gaming interesting. That would conflict with the purpose of my redesign and research.

Generally speaking, if women enjoy programming real-life uses and men enjoy programming games, this confirms my previous research that offering two different projects per concept is the way to go. One of the projects would be a real-life use and the other could be a game.

In addition, perhaps the student’s expectation of time spent outside of class to work on a project is a bit off. It appears they will ultimately spend double the amount of time than they had initially expected. In essence, if you’re going to spend a lot of time outside of class to work on projects, they might as well be projects you like to code.

I couldn’t help but chuckle when I read the short study on collaboration between disciplines to complete a project. That’s such a common complaint, even if they are students within the same section! Someone ends up doing all the work. Indeed. I do believe this because as an undergraduate computer science student, any group project assigned ended up with me (and maybe one other) completing the entire application and everyone getting credit for it. I certainly don’t miss those days!

What do you think?

Reference:

Pulimood, S. &Wolz, U. (2008). “Problem Solving in Community: A Necessary Shift in CS Pedagogy”. Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education. Web Site:
http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1360000/1352209/p210-pulimood.pdf?key1=1352209&key2=1767099321&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=31476945&CFTOKEN=33370313