This poster presents an analysis of student learning of basic workflow process for GitHub. It draws on data gathered by GitKit, a learning environment that supports the development of fundamental GitHub skills widely used in contemporary software development. The poster discusses the purpose and facilities of GitKit and presents an analysis of data from use of GitKit at multiple institutions. This analysis focuses on student misconceptions and strategies in trying to execute basic GitHub workflows.

Open source provides a great approach for students to learn about large scale software, team processes, and tools that comprise professional software development. Open source can motivate learning in software engineering by providing scale, complexity, and product evolution that in-class examples cannot match. Finally, open source projects motivate students by providing an authentic, collaborative engagement environment for learning. Join us for a discussion with instructors on the myriad ways that open source software can be incorporated into classes or used to motivate students in clubs and extracurricular activities. Instructors who have tried open source with students will be invited to share their experience and offer examples of what they've done in the classroom. All participants will be encouraged to share ideas, discuss challenges and problems, and ask questions related to teaching with open source. Humanitarian free and open source software (HFOSS) provides the added benefits of appealing to students who are interested in humanitarian applications of computing and providing an opportunity to introduce all students to computing for social good. The BoF organizers are focused on HFOSS, and able to discuss that aspect of teaching open source. But the organizers also encourage faculty with interest in using any type of open source in the classroom to join in this discussion.

This poster presents new developments related to GitKit, a scaffolded environment that supports both students and instructors in developing fundamental skills related to Git-based platforms like GitHub that are widely used in contemporary software development. The poster discusses the purpose and facilities of GitKit, including new capabilities, and preliminary data collection to analyze student skill development in learning GitHub tasks.

The recently released CS2023 Curriculum Guidelines propose a "CS Core" of topics that any student with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science must know. While the process of generating CS2023 included multiple rounds of feedback from the CS community, the end result is necessarily the result of compromise and may not meet the needs of all institutions. In particular, the size of the CS Core, as measured in instructional time or courses, may not be consistent with all programs. Small programs with limited faculty, liberal arts programs wishing to ensure space for academic exploration, or departments wanting to explore less traditional curricular structures may find a large CS Core limiting. The 2024 report "Piecing Together the Next 15 Years of Computing Education" edited by Decker and Weiss discusses the challenges of our increasingly "overstuffed curricula" and the barriers this can erect against broadening participation in computing.

The aim of this tutorial is to teach faculty the fundamentals of Git and GitHub using the GitKit. The GitKit is a snapshot of the artifacts (codebase, issues, etc.) of an authentic Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) project, packaged with learning activities, an instructor guide, and a cloud-based development environment. The GitKit's learning activities introduce a GitHub workflow and Git basics by modeling the process of contributing to an authentic FOSS project. The activities introduce not only Git and GitHub, but also provide exposure to how these tools support the needs of Open Source (and commercial) development practices. The majority of the tutorial time will be dedicated to hands-on learning with the GitKit. Participants will work in small groups to complete key activities from the GitKit to learn both Git and GitHub fundamentals, and to see what their students would experience while using the GitKit. This will include an introduction to FOSS community principles, roles and practices as well at basic Git commands and GitHub workflow. The tutorial will conclude with information about how participants can deploy the GitKit as a short (1-2 session) or medium (4-6 session) length module in software development courses ranging from high school through college. A laptop is required for participants.

Modern version control tools and workflow practices are required skills for nearly all production software development, making them essential for students and in high demand among employers. Since these tools and processes were created for distributed, asynchronous collaboration on large scale projects, teaching them in an authentic context that makes clear their utility and design presents myriad challenges for both faculty and students. The GitKit is a snapshot of the FarmData2 Humanitarian Free and Open Source (HFOSS) project's artifacts (code, issues, documentation, etc.) frozen at a particular point in time and packaged with learning activities, an instructor guide, and a choice of containerized development environments. The GitKit thus provides students with the authentic context of a real-world project in which to learn and practice key Git and GitHub skills and workflows, while mitigating many of the challenges of doing so in an educational setting. The GitKit, including its learning activities and development environments are described in sufficient detail to encourage instructor adoption and feedback. A pilot study of student experiences with the GitKit is promising, suggesting that students gained an understanding of FOSS concepts and key skills, noticed automated guidance and feedback built into the development environment, and found it helpful in their learning. Future plans for the GitKit based on these surveys and instructor experiences with pilot uses are described along with plans for the development of HFOSS Kits for teaching and learning of other software development and aligned skills in authentic contexts.

ACM/IEEE curriculum guidelines for computer science, such as CS2013 or the forthcoming CS2023, provide well-researched and detailed guidance about the content and skills that make up an undergraduate computer science (CS) program. Liberal arts CS programs often struggle to apply these guidelines within their institutional context and goals. Historically, this has been addressed through the development of model CS curricula tailored for the liberal arts context. We take a different position: that no single model curriculum can apply across the wide range of liberal arts institutions. Instead, we argue that liberal arts CS educators need best practices for using guidelines such as CS2023 to inform curriculum design. These practices must acknowledge the opportunities and priorities of a liberal arts philosophy as well as a program's mission and identity. This paper reviews the context and motivation behind computing in the liberal arts. We also review the history of liberal arts CS educators and ACM/IEEE curriculum guidelines. We present data and trends about liberal arts computing programs, discussing how this informs curriculum design. Finally, we propose a process that guides programs to work with curriculum guidelines through the lens of institutional and program missions and identities, goals, and situational factors.

Engaging students in free and open source software (FOSS) is educationally rewarding but challenging. We aim to ease student engagement and faculty use by developing HFOSS (Humanitarian FOSS) Kits. An HFOSS Kit is a snapshot of an HFOSS project at a particular point in time, packaged with student learning activities, instructor guide, and containerized development environment (if necessary). HFOSS Kits in the classroom have several advantages. While active projects change and evolve, an HFOSS Kit enables a stable, reusable educational experience. Student learning activities and instructor guides are written against the stable project snapshot, thus the high cost of developing and revising activities and guides can be amortized by reuse across multiple semesters. Students are engaged in a more authentic learning experience as they develop their FOSS skills and concepts using actual projects, rather than typical, single-semester examples. The containerized development environment facilitates immediate context-sensitive feedback as students complete assignments. The instructor or automations built into the kit can simulate community interaction. Finally, a focus on HFOSS projects has the potential to broaden the appeal of learning FOSS skills. In our demonstration, we will expand upon the Kit details and reasons for using one. We will demonstrate GitKit - a kit for teaching Git and GitHub/Lab workflow, what it provides, and how it can be used in the classroom. We will also explain the Kits' technical architecture, tools developed to capture the snapshot of project artifacts and support Kit building, and future development plans. Keywords: Tools; Authentic Learning; Open Source

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects operate transparently, providing excellent educational opportunities for computing students to acquire and practice both technical and softer skills that are in high demand. Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS) projects are FOSS projects that broadly but intentionally aim to improve the human condition. This paper analyzes data from five years of a two-semester capstone experience in which students consider a number of FOSS and/or HFOSS projects and choose one to engage with. Findings support assertions that projects with humanitarian goals are preferred by both women and students with lower confidence in their software development and teamwork skills. The data analysis is suggestive that African American, Black and Hispanic (ABH) students may also show preferences for projects with humanitarian goals. An exploratory analysis of pre-course survey data adds additional insight into how gender, race/ethnicity, student confidence and perceptions of community may influence project selection, helping to identify important directions for further investigation. Collectively the results presented here reinforce suggestions that incorporating HFOSS, or more generally computing with social value, holds potential for broadening participation in computing.

A liberal arts context offers unique opportunities for curricular innovation that can inform the implementation of computing curricula more broadly. The SIGCSE Committee on Computing Education in Liberal Arts Colleges has collected 18 model curricula during affiliated events at SIGCSE symposia over the past two years. Here we conduct a distillation of the curricula and discuss themes across the curricula including: flexible pathways through majors, interdisciplinary initiatives, and preparing students for a range of careers and their first job. Our discussion focuses on how liberal arts colleges are empowered to think creatively about computing curricula and how research intensive universities, community colleges, and K-12 can leverage these approaches for their context.

The necessity and benefits of broadening participation in computing and the roles that computing programs must play in addressing this challenge have been well documented. Elevating the social value of computing has been advocated as an approach to increasing the appeal of computing to both women and other underrepresented groups. This poster adds empirical support for that approach. It reports on the analysis of projects selected by students over four years of a two-semester senior capstone. In this capstone students select Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) communities with which to engage. The students learned about FOSS principles and processes and were introduced to humanitarian FOSS (HFOSS). They completed pre-semester surveys and engaged in a three-stage project selection process. The types of projects that students considered (FOSS or HFOSS) support the assertion that computing with social value is appealing to both females and students in underrepresented groups. Analysis of pre-semester attitude surveys adds additional insight and suggests further avenues for investigation.

This special session is intended for people who are curious about integrating Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS) into their courses and involving students in HFOSS projects. HFOSS participation provides an excellent vehicle to introduce students to computing for social good while also giving them experience with real-world software development. The session will begin with a series of lightning talks by faculty who have incorporated HFOSS participation into one or more of their courses. This will be followed by a small group activity to allow attendees to ask questions and discuss individual interests in integrating HFOSS activities and to become familiar with HFOSS educational resources available for instructors. The session will conclude with some closing comments on current and planned activities of instructors who are teaching with HFOSS and suggestions for faculty who would like to pursue this teaching approach themselves.

Many computer science programs have capstone experiences or project courses that allow students to integrate knowledge from the full breadth of their major. Such capstone projects may be student-designed, instructor-designed, designed in conjunction with outside companies, or integrated with ongoing free and open source (FOSS) projects. The literature shows that the FOSS approach has attracted a great deal of interest, in particular when implemented with projects that have humanitarian goals (HFOSS). In this article, we describe five unique models from five distinct types of institutions for incorporating sustained FOSS or HFOSS (alternatively H/FOSS) project work into capstone experiences or courses. The goal is to provide instructors wishing to integrate open source experiences into their curriculum with additional perspectives and resources to help in adapting this approach to the specific needs and goals of their institution and students. All of the models presented are based on sustained engagement with H/FOSS projects that last at least one semester and often more. Each model is described in terms of its characteristics and how it fits the needs of the institution using the model. Assessment of each model is also presented. We then discuss the themes that are common across the models, such as project selection, team formation, mentoring, and student assessment. We examine the choices made by each model, as well as the challenges faced. We end with a discussion how the models have leveraged institutional initiatives and collaborations with outside organizations to address some of the challenges associated with these projects.

The SIGCSE Committee on Computing Education in Liberal Arts Colleges was approved in late 2015 and began organizing itself at SIGCSE 2016. The Committee has made an initial survey of the liberal arts computer science landscape, and has identified some central issues for more detailed study. This session will present the Committee's initial findings and future plans, and will solicit audience participation in refining the set of central issues and identifying possible resolutions to them.

There is a growing community of faculty members who support student participation in Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS) projects in a variety of courses at a range of different institutions. HFOSS can provide a plethora of learning opportunities for students that ranges from design to code to test to documentation and more. Involvement in an HFOSS project allows students to gain professional skills while also gaining an understanding of the social impact of computing. However, experience has shown that supporting student involvement in HFOSS can pose some challenges to instructors including identification of appropriate assignments, creation of rubrics, grading, and managing interactions with the HFOSS community. The organizers of this BoF are faculty members who have a spectrum of experience in supporting student involvement in HFOSS. The organizers will share tips for structuring such student participation as well as discuss challenges that they've experienced and approaches for overcoming those challenges. Attendees will be encouraged to ask questions about how to get started, selecting an appropriate HFOSS project, structuring assignments, and more. This BoF will provide faculty members the opportunity to network with instructors with experience in this area.

This paper examines the effects of tool design on student testing behavior in an introductory course. Two tools are considered: BlueJ and WebCAT. A small modification was made to the BlueJ test recording interface to encourage students to engage more deeply in the testing process. A larger percentage of tests submitted by students using the modified BlueJ interface were correct. Further, the solutions they submitted contained fewer lines of code while being similarly complete and correct. Evidence is given that students using both BlueJ versions often rely on Web-CAT to validate their solution methods before testing the methods themselves. In response a new Web-CAT grading plug-in is proposed that we believe will better promote an incremental code-a-little test-a-little development style.

dLife is a free and open-source Java library that supports undergraduate education and research involving robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision. The design of dLife addresses many concerns raised by experience reports in the CS education literature including a shortened code/test/debug cycle, ready access to robot sensor information and close integration with a robotic simulation system. Full support is currently provided for the following robots: Finch, Hemisson (or Khepera Jr.), Sony Aibo, Khepera 2, Khepera 3, and Pioneer 3, with more in development. Easily extensible packages support classroom and research applications using neural networks, genetic algorithms, reinforcement learning and computer vision.

Previous studies indicate that the use of pair programming has beneficial effects on student learning. In this article, we present a controlled study that directly measured students’ acquisition of individual programming skills using laboratory practica (in which students programmed individually under exam conditions). Additionally, we analyzed other measures of student performance, attitudes, and retention. Our results provide direct evidence that pair programming improves the individual programming skills of lower SAT students, and that students who pair program are more confident in their work and are more likely to successfully complete the course. Results from the four other major studies of the effects of pair programming are reviewed and compared with those presented here in order to draw broader conclusions.

An analysis of data from 259 CS1 students is performed to compare the performance of students who were paired by demonstrated ability to that of students who were paired randomly or worked alone. The results suggest that when given individual programming tasks to complete, lowest-quartile students who were paired by ability perform better than those who were paired randomly and those who worked alone.

Previous studies have reported significant educational benefits from the use of pair-programming, in which two students program together at the same computer. Here, we report the results of a controlled study designed to measure the effects of pair-programming on the development of individual programming ability. Our findings indicate significant improvements in individual programming skill for students with lower SAT scores. Additionally, we found that all students are more likely to complete the course successfully when using pair-programming.

An argument is made for integrating the study of empirical skills and concepts into the computer science curriculum. With reference to past work an incremental approach is advocated for the study of these skills and concepts. A unique assignment that exemplifies the advocated approach is presented. This assignment, based on the study of random walks, is intended to introduce empirical investigation as early as is possible, during the first week of the first course. Two extensions to this assignment, one for the first course and one for a programming languages course, are discussed and used to illustrate the advocated incremental approach.

Educators are increasingly acknowledging that practical problems in computer science demand basic competencies in experimentation and data analysis. However, little effort has been made towards explicitly identifying those empirical concepts and skills needed by computer scientists, nor in developing methods of integrating those concepts and skills into CS curricula. In this paper, we identify a core list of empirical competencies and motivate them based on established courses outside of computer science, their potential use in standard CS courses, and their application to real-world problems. Sample assignments that facilitate the integration of these competencies into the CS curriculum are also discussed.

No abstract available.

We present several introductory computer science laboratory assignments designed to reinforce the use of the scientific method. These assignments require students to make predictions, write simulations, perform experiments, collect data and analyze the results. The assignments are specifically designed to place student predictions in conflict with the observed results, thus producing a disequilibration. As a result, students are motivated to critically examine their simulations, consider their assumptions, and repeat their experiments. These potential benefits of disequilibration are discussed and additional ways to apply disequilibration in computer science education are suggested.

The Knob & Switch Computer is a computer architecture simulator designed to teach beginning students the basics of computer organization. It differs from existing simulators in two significant ways: (1) it incorporates cognitive hooks in the form of knobs and switches that encourage exploration and discovery on the part of the student; and (2) it can be presented one component at a time, starting with a simple interactive data path and building incrementally to a full-featured stored program machine. Both of these features make it possible to engage beginning students and effectively convey an understanding of how computers work. The Knob & Switch Computer simulator can also motivate the study of other computing topics such as data representation, assembly language programming, and RISC vs. CISC architectures. In addition to describing the Knob & Switch Computer, we discuss experiences using the simulator in breadth-based introductory courses both at Dickinson College and Creighton University.

Empirical skills are playing an increasingly important role in the computing profession and our society. But while traditional computer science curricula are effective in teaching software design skills, little attention has been paid to developing empirical investigative skills such as forming testable hypotheses, designing experiments, critiquing their validity, collecting data, explaining results, and drawing conclusions. In this paper, we describe an initiative at Dickinson College that integrates the development of empirical skills throughout the computer science curriculum. At the introductory level, students perform experiments, analyze the results, and discuss their conclusions. In subsequent courses, they develop their skills at designing, conducting and critiquing experiments through incrementally more open-ended assignments. By their senior year, they are capable of forming hypotheses, designing and conducting experiments, and presenting conclusions based on the results.

No abstract available.