ACE2012
Fourteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference

Workshops

Details of workshops are shown below. For workshop dates and the chance to register, please return soon.

• Developing an Exam Taxonomy Workshop
• Introductory Programming Teaching with Greenfoot
• Road testing the Peer Assisted Teaching Scheme
• Improving Teaching
• Epistemology of Competency
• Register for Workshops

Register for Workshops

Workshop registration is free.

Registrations for workshops close on Monday 16 January, 2012.

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Developing an Exam Taxonomy Workshop

This workshop builds on the ACE 2011 Exam classification workshop which began an investigation of the nature and composition of programming exam papers. In the 2011 ACE workshop a group of 16 academics from 11 institutions reviewed and trialled a classification scheme for programming exam questions. After the workshop participants were asked to analyse a set of exam papers across a number of dimensions. Initial work from that workshop resulted in several paper publications [1, 2] and a small grant funded by the Australian Council of Deans of ICT (ACD ICT). This has now led us to the second workshop which aims to extend the classification scheme to include measures of complexity and difficulty. Complexity has been defined in a number of ways by various researchers and many factors are seen as contributing to it [3-5].

At the 2012 ACE workshop we expect participants to develop a shared understanding of complexity and to apply this shared understanding to analyse a set of exam papers. Through an analysis of exam papers we hope to classify exam questions and achieve a high level of inter-rater reliability along the following dimensions:

• operational complexity,
• conceptual complexity,
• contextual complexity,
• linguistic complexity, and
• intellectual complexity.

Planned outcomes

1. Refined programming exam question classification scheme
2. Ideas for a repository to share exam questions
3. A shared understanding of standards and practices in programming assessment
4. Further conference and journal publications
5. Further grant funding

References

1. Sheard, J., Simon., Carbone, A., Chinn, D., Laakso, M., Clear, T., de Raadt, M., D'Souza, D., Harland, J., Lister, R., Philpott, A., and Warburton, G. (2011) Exploring Programming Assessment Instruments: a Classification Scheme for Examination Questions. The Seventh International Computing Education Research Workshop ICER'11, August 8-9, 2011, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
2. Sheard, J., Simon, Carbone, A., Chinn, D., Laakso, M., Clear, T., de Raadt, M., D'Souza, D., Harland, J., Lister, R., Philpott, A., and Warburton, G. (2012) Paper Title to be confirmed. The Fourteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference ACE'12, 30 Jan- 3 Feb 2012. In progress
3. Williams, G. & Clarke, D. (1997). 'Mathematical task complexity and task selection'. Mathematics: Imagine the Possibilities - Proceedings of the Mathematical Association of Victoria 34th Annual Conference, Clayton, Victoria, Australia, 406-15.
4. Carbone, A. (2007). Principles for Designing Programming Tasks: How task characteristics influence student learning of programming, PhD Thesis. Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
5. Mitchell, I. and Carbone, A. (2011) A typology of task characteristics and their effects on student engagement. International Journal of Educational Research, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2011.05.001

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Introductory Programming Teaching with Greenfoot

Greenfoot (http://greenfoot.org) is an educational programming environment designed to learn and teach object-oriented programming concepts (using the Java language) with games and simulations. While exposing standard Java and fundamental principles, it is highly motivating for learners. Students can develop interactive graphical games from the first day, experiment with programming constructs and share their programs online (see http://greenfootgallery.org). A large instructor community and numerous resources are available to support teachers (http://greenroom.greenfoot.org/).

This workshop will enable participants to get hands-on experience with Greenfoot programming. We will cover beginners topics aimed at people who have not previously seen Greenfoot, some more advanced issues as well as pedagogical considerations and educational tips and techniques. Participants should be able to use the material covered directly in their own teaching.

Michael Kölling is also our keynote speaker (see his bio.).

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Road testing the Peer Assisted Teaching Scheme

This workshop builds on a Peer Assisted Teaching Scheme (PATS) that was first piloted in the Faculty of Information Technology in 2008 at Monash University, Caulfield Campus, Australia [1]. Following its initial success, PATS was funded by a 2010 ALTC Teaching Fellowship [2], so that now PATS is open to all academics who wish to improve the health and quality of their units. The scheme aims to inform and equip academics with skills and strategies to improve their units and build peer capacity to enhancing learning and teaching [3-5].

During the workshop participants will follow a detailed process in which they will be partnered with a critical friend to share ideas, discuss unit improvements, and develop future educational innovations. The participants will work through a sub-set of interactive and engaging activities from the PATS instructional workbook [6] that provides an overview of the Peer Assisted Teaching Scheme, its tasks and requirements. These activities will usually be conducted pre-semester, during semester and post-semester.

Planned outcomes

1. Identification of barriers that prevent academics from making changes to a unit
2. Discussion about unit evaluation results (qualitative and quantitative) with a critical friend with the aim of identifying 2-4 goals for improvement
3. Production of a strategy plan to realise the goals
4. Conference and journal publications
5. Grant funding

References

1. Carbone, A., Ceddia J. and Wong J. (2011) A Scheme for Improving ICT Units with Critically Low Student Satisfaction, ITiCSE 2011
2. Carbone, A. (2010) Peer Assisted Teaching Scheme (PATS), Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC), ($100,000)
3. Carbone, A. (2011) Building peer assistance capacity in faculties to improve student satisfaction of units, HERDSA (2011)
4. Ashwin, P. (2003). 'Peer facilitation and how it contributes to the development', Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 8, 1, 5-18.
5. Gratch, A. (1998). Beginning Teacher and Mentor Relationships, Journal of Teacher Education, 49.
6. http://opvclt.monash.edu.au/educationalexcellence/peerassistedteachingscheme/resources.html

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Improving Teaching: designing and facilitating for learning at the subject level

This workshop is designed both for senior academics who are keen for the opportunity to strategically and critically examine their curriculum design and delivery in light of current educational frameworks. New academics would also benefit from participating in workshops that have been designed to challenge them to grasp the essential strategies involved in facilitating successful learning outcomes.

The workshop is supported by the ALTC Discipline Support Strategy for Engineering & ICT.

Planned outcomes

Participants will be able to identify the curriculum alignment at their level of responsibility (unit, subject, course or program). Participants will also be able to consider assessable evidential outcomes that demonstrate their students are graduating with desired capabilities. Participants will also take away skills and strategies for implementing curriculum that engages learners in a student-centered context. The workshop modules will be shaped to meet the specific needs and interests of participants.

Please note: this is a workshop where participants will be actively involved!

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A Shared, Applied Epistemology of Competency in Computer Programming

The ICT degrees in most Australian universities have a sequence of three subjects/units that teach programming. This project will document the academic standards associated with those three subjects, in the six participating universities and other universities. This will necessitate the development of a rich framework for describing the learning goals associated with programming - an epistemology. It will also be necessary to benchmark exam questions that are mapped onto this epistemology. This project unifies three existing unfunded projects, running across IT departments in six Australian universities. The three are strongly related, but began from different viewpoints, and currently only one person is a member of all three. At present the members of each project communicate primarily via email. ALTC funding will provide the participants, from the three eastern mainland states, with the funds necessary to meet regularly face-to-face, allowing for a much richer exchange of ideas and making the unified project much greater than the sum of the three separate projects.

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