Promising Practices in CS1

During the 07-08 school year, I am working with my advisor, Gloria Townsend, to find ways to attract more students to CS1. As a part of that, I would also like to find ways to improve retention rates from CS1 to CS2. I have just attended a session called "Promising Practices in CS1," which included presentations by faculty from various universities. The presenters spoke about the ways they are trying to improve or create CS courses that will be more interesting to potential majors and non-majors alike.

Some of the ideas included using robots as a way to teach basic CS1 concepts. I thought this idea was so cool! The robots are simple by robotics standards, but they also include pretty interesting parts, such as LED lights, IR sensors, and Bluetooth technology to allow students to program the robot in such a way that it can perform simple tasks, such as turning right if there is an obstacle to the left. At DePauw, we are looking at the possibility of having a road show or high school day. The use of robots has piqued our interests, and now I'm very much looking forward to pursuing this!

Another idea was using 3D graphics to teach CS1 concepts using an application called Alice. It allows students to use a "drag-and-drop" editor to create code to work with 3D graphics. The editor prevents syntax errors, which is a great idea! Syntax errors can be such a deterrent to students (trust me - been there, done that!). I believe that it is important for students to learn the concepts and then learn the bigger details, including syntax errors. There is a later version of Alice, Alice 3.0, which allows for the use of Eclipse to edit code. This application seems like a really interesting way for students to really get involved in computer science and realize how cool CS is!

I'm really looking forward to pursuing this ideas for use at DePauw or for use at our WICS-sponsored high school day or road show! It's really remarkable to see how CS can be altered to improve the amount of student interest and student retention. I hope to see CS classes of the future use more of these techniques.

Brit McCullar
Official GHC 2007 Blogger
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