This ATE Project project addresses three issues in computing technology education in community colleges: (1) the need to reduce first-year attrition rates in computer science and information technology programs, (2) the need to adapt innovative approaches for teaching introductory programming to community college students, and (3) the need to provide effective community college faculty development materials for training in using innovative approaches. In our previous ATE project, JABRWOC (#0302542), they studied the effects of teaching fundamental programming concepts with visualization in pre-CS1 courses in community colleges. In this project, the innovative approach tested in JABRWOC will be extended to include a transition from Alice to Java in CS1 courses in community colleges, using the new, more powerful version of the software. In addition, this project proposes to develop a peer mentoring model and workshop materials designed to support community college faculty as they learn to teach with this innovative approach. Through our evaluation efforts, we will study the effectiveness of this approach for retaining students in pre-CS1 and CS1 courses and the effectiveness of the peer mentoring model and workshop materials for community college instructors.
This project addressed three issues in computing technology education in community colleges: (1) high first-year attrition rates, (2) lack of materials in innovative approaches for teaching introductory programming adapted for community college students, and (3) the lack of community college faculty development materials for training in using innovative approaches. The project had two major goals. One goal was to provide an updated approach with high impact, motivating context for first year computing and programming courses at community colleges in both pre-CS1 and CS1 levels. The software tools employed were Alice 3 and Java. The second goal was to develop a peer mentoring model and provide faculty development workshops specifically designed for community college faculty, presented by community college faculty. In the first phase of this project, a mentoring model for funded-project management in the community college setting was developed and implemented. The mentoring model included a schedule of teleconferences and face-to-face meetings where topics such as budgetary procedures, writing annual reports, assessment requirements, and data collection were discussed. Faculty at Camden County College, having experience in a previous ATE grant served as mentors for faculty at Community College of Allegheny County as well as Collin College. Curriculum and instructional materials were developed and tested by faculty at all three participating community colleges (Camden, Allegheny County, and Collin). These materials included updating and adapting existing Alice 2 materials to use Alice 3 as well as developing totally new materials that include a transition from Alice to Java. The transition materials were specifically designed around techniques adhering to the principles of "teaching for transfer" which are part of active research in the Education Theory of Mediated Transfer. Due to ongoing development of Alice 3, the instructional materials were revised and retested three times during the project. In the second phase of this project, workshops were presented at each campus of the three participating schools. Workshop participants included faculty at the local campus as well as faculty from nearby community colleges and high schools. A collaborative workshop was held during the fourth year (enabled by a no-cost extension for the project). The collaborative workshop included session presentations from members of the Alice Project at Carnegie Mellon University and faculty from Camden, Allegheny County, and Collin community colleges. Workshop attendees included faculty from 24 community colleges around the U.S. Results of this study confirmed the hypothesis that using Alice 3 in pre-CS1 and Alice 3 and Java in CS1 would increase retention in these first year courses. In courses where Alice 2 was previously used, retention remained consistent and in courses where Alice 3 was introduced, retention increased in the range of 10% to 26% over historical retention rates. In an assessment of "ease of use," "engagement," and "educationally helpful" attributes, students were asked to rate Alice 3 on a scale of 0 "not at all" to 5 "excellent." Results were: Ease of use at 4.1, engagement at 3.7, and educationally helpful at 3.8. These results are comparable to the results from a previous NSF-ATE study of using Alice 2 in introductory programming courses. The instructional materials used in this study implement a pedagogy and methodology based on the Theory of Mediated Transfer, an active research field in Education. Leaders in the study of Mediated Transfer include Perkins at Harvard and Salomon at Arizona. The "teaching for transfer" techniques described by Perkins and Salomon were applied in this ATE study and the results provide independent evidence in support of the theory. These techniques are not restricted to computer science. Application of mediated transfer should help students in other science or engineering fields to gain better knowledge and appreciation of computer science. Products of the study include an online repository of Alice 3 instructional materials specifically designed for community college settings, an eBook entitled How-To Guide for Alice 3, and a textbook entitled Learning Java through Alice, as well as papers and conference presentations.
