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Closing The Cyberlearning Loop: Enabling Teachers To Formatively Assess Student Programming Projects

Published: 24 February 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Teachers are increasingly integrating game design and simulation creation projects as part of their classroom curricula. These projects have many benefits including motivating students in STEM activities and exposing students to computational thinking - a key part of upcoming science standards. However, barriers still exist to project-based computer science in a lab environment. One major issue is that, as students are creating their projects, it is extremely difficult for teachers to know how every student is progressing through a given activity and how to keep every student engaged. This paper introduces a Cyberlearning system entitled REACT (Real-Time Evaluation and Assessment of Computational Thinking) that is an initial step towards giving teachers quickly discernible real-time data corresponding to each student project. REACT provides teachers with a sortable dashboard, consisting of data from each student, that shows the characters students created and used to populate their game or simulation world as well as the semantic meaning behind what students have programmed. A feasibility test with four middle school classrooms shows that REACT helps teachers formatively assess students and provide targeted instruction to struggling individuals. Furthermore, teachers showed excitement at the summative and student self-assessment capabilities of REACT, and every teacher independently stated they would use the REACT system in subsequent end-user programming units.

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      SIGCSE '15: Proceedings of the 46th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
      February 2015
      766 pages
      ISBN:9781450329668
      DOI:10.1145/2676723
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      Published: 24 February 2015

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      Author Tags

      1. assessment tools
      2. computational thinking
      3. cyberlearning
      4. end-user game and simulation design
      5. formative assessment
      6. k-12 computer science education
      7. summative assessment

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      SIGCSE '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 105 of 289 submissions, 36%;
      Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

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      Cited By

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      • (2022)ScratchThAI: A conversation-based learning support framework for computational thinking developmentEducation and Information Technologies10.1007/s10639-021-10870-z27:6(8533-8560)Online publication date: 9-Mar-2022
      • (2022)Designing Dashboards to Support Teachers in Online Learning ToolsLearning and Collaboration Technologies. Designing the Learner and Teacher Experience10.1007/978-3-031-05657-4_17(238-252)Online publication date: 26-Jun-2022
      • (2021)A Systematic Literature Review of Gameful Feedback in Computer Science EducationInternational Journal of Information and Education Technology10.18178/ijiet.2021.11.10.155111:10(464-470)Online publication date: 2021
      • (2021)Toward A Framework for Formative Assessment of Conceptual Learning in K-12 Computer Science ClassroomsProceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3408877.3432460(31-37)Online publication date: 3-Mar-2021
      • (2021)Computational Thinking Assessment: Literature ReviewResearch on E-Learning and ICT in Education10.1007/978-3-030-64363-8_7(111-128)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2021
      • (2020)Computing education theoriesACM Inroads10.1145/338188911:1(54-64)Online publication date: 13-Feb-2020
      • (2020)Theories and Models of Emotions, Attitudes, and Self-Efficacy in the Context of Programming EducationProceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research10.1145/3372782.3406279(36-47)Online publication date: 10-Aug-2020
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      • (2019)Computing Education TheoriesProceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research10.1145/3291279.3339409(187-197)Online publication date: 30-Jul-2019
      • (2019)The Zones of Proximal Flow TutorialProceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3287324.3287361(428-434)Online publication date: 22-Feb-2019
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