Transforming the CS Classroom with Studio-Based Learning

N. Hari Narayanan,1 Christopher Hundhausen,2 Dean Hendrix,1 Martha Crosby3

2

Computer Science & Software Engineering Department, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849 School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164 3 Department of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822

naraynh@auburn.edu, hundhaus@wsu.edu, dh@auburn.edu, crosby@hawaii.edu

SUMMARY
The studio-based learning (SBL) model aims to promote learning in a social and collaborative context by having learners construct, iteratively refine, and critically review design artifacts under the guidance of instructors and disciplinary experts. Recognizing the potential of SBL to foster the development of not only technical design skills, but also increasingly-coveted communication and collaboration skills, we have been adapting the approach for computing education, implementing it in various courses, and evaluating its impact over the past 5 years. This effort now involves 26 computing courses at 15 institutions in seven states. To our knowledge, this represents the most systematic implementation and evaluation of a pedagogy for computing education to date. This special session will introduce SBL to the SIGCSE community and facilitate a discussion and exchange of ideas. In addition to oral and poster presentations of the SBL model and its evaluation results, the session will feature "war stories" from teachers who have applied the model to their courses and hands-on activities to help attendees apply SBL to their courses.

a social and collaborative context by having students design and construct artifacts, and then present their artifacts to others in socalled "design crits." The purpose of these design crits is to enable students to obtain critical feedback from peers, teachers and other experts, ultimately helping students to refine and improve their designs and acquire disciplinary skills. With support from the NSF CPATH program, we have been adapting this approach for computing education [4], implementing it in several courses, and systematically evaluating its impact over the past five years. The SBL model was implemented in CS0, CS1, CS2 and CS3 at Auburn University, Washington State University and the University of Hawaii at Manoa during 2007-10 academic years. In addition, the model is currently being implemented in 26 computing courses at 15 institutions in seven states during the 2010-12 academic years. So far, approximately 1600 computing majors have experienced SBL in 33 courses at 15 institutions. Quantitative data on student performance and qualitative data on student perceptions and attitudes have been collected from all studio and traditional versions of courses for comparison purposes. Data analyses to date indicate that students in studio courses learn as much or more than students in the same courses taught in the traditional way [1,3]. Perhaps more importantly, students in studio courses have shown higher levels of motivation and engagement than students in traditional courses [1,3]. Since SBL requires significant amounts of classroom time, we have been developing the Online Studio-Based Learning Environment (OSBLE), a free and open source environment that facilitates asynchronous SBL activities in courses where face-to-face SBL activities are not feasible [2]. More details on our efforts and research results may be found at www.studiobasedlearning.org.

Categories and Subject Descriptors

K.3.1 [Computers and Education] Computer Uses in Education - collaborative learning; K.3.2 [Computers and Education]: Computer and Information Science Education curriculum.

General Terms
Design, Experimentation.

Keywords
Design crits, evaluation, pedagogy, studio-based learning.

1. BACKGROUND
The studio-based learning (SBL) model has been the centerpiece of architecture and fine arts education for over a century. Based on sociocultural learning theory, SBL aims to promote learning in

2. OBJECTIVE
The proposed special session has three objectives: (a) to introduce the SIGCSE audience to the SBL model and the emerging body of research on its use and impact in computing education; (b) to share and discuss "war stories" from teachers who have used the approach; and (c) to provide practical guidance to audience members who would like to explore the use of SBL in their own courses. The session will be organized with atypical elements such as "war stories" and hands-on "studio sessions," as well as elements drawn from more traditional conference sessions such as presentations and posters. These will be combined in an engaging way to meet our objectives. We believe that introducing SBL to the broad SIGCSE audience

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through a special session is important for at least three reasons. First, though enrollment has started to climb after a precipitous decline, attrition is still a major problem in computing disciplines. Based on the affective impact of SBL that we have documented, there is reason to believe that SBL may help educators address this problem. Second, SBL is a flexible instructional model that is adaptable to lower-division and upper-division, small and large, and lecture and lab courses. Hence, we believe it will be attractive to SIGCSE attendees. Finally, this session will enrich the conference by highlighting the fruits of educational research from one of the most systematic implementation and evaluation efforts of a computing pedagogy to date.

student comments. Another unique aspect is that audience members who are interested in exploring the use of SBL in their own courses will have the opportunity to work closely with members of our team on the design of SBL versions of their own courses during the special session, afterwards during the BOF and rest of the conference, and even later through the SBL community portal designed for online discussions and resource sharing (www. studiobasedlearning.org).

4. EXPECTATIONS
We expect that the audience will consist of a mix of (a) instructors who have used another collaborative learning technique in their courses and are curious about SBL, and (b) instructors who wish to learn more about collaborative learning in general and SBL in particular, and how they might benefit their own courses. The session will cover SBL at various levels to suit a wide variety of attendees. For the merely curious, the first part of the session will provide an overview of SBL and its impact as revealed through observation and formal evaluation. For the more interested, the second part will provide real experiences from practitioners. For the inspired, the final part will be a starting point for transforming their coursesan effort in which they can expect continued support from us during and after the conference.

3. SESSION OUTLINE
The special session will consist of six elements: (1) tutorial-style quick presentations; (2) stories from the trenches; (3) discussions involving the audience and a panel of SBL practitioners; (4) question-and-answer (Q & A) periods; (5) hands-on curriculum redesign activities involving experienced SBL teachers and interested attendees; and (6) informative posters around the room. First 20 minutes: The session will begin with an introduction to SBL that will be presented in three five-minute quick tutorialstyle talks to answer the following questions for attendees. (1) What is SBL? (2) Why should I be interested in SBL? (3) How do I apply SBL in my course? These will be followed by a fiveminute Q & A period. There will be three posters in the room that provide more details on each of these questions, which attendees can inspect throughout the session. Next 40 minutes: The next part of the session will consist of three 10-minute stories presented by teachers, selected from our cohort of 18 SBL faculty. They will recount their experiences: how they turned their course into a studio course and its highlights, the benefits and limitations of SBL that they observed in comparison with the traditional style in which they previously taught, and personal advice and tips on how to turn a traditional computing course into a more effective studio course. These will be followed by a 10-minute Q & A period. Posters with more details on these studio courses will be available in the room. Final 15 minutes: At least seven experienced SBL educators (the four authors and the three teachers from our cohort of 18 SBL faculty) will be present. Three of us will form a panel during this final session to take questions from the audience and initiate discussions. The others will provide a hands-on course and curriculum redesign experience for interested educators in the audience. We will identify audience members interested in the hands-on experience at the outset, and form one or more groups that will sit separately in the session room or in a public area to work out initial curriculum designs for studio versions of the courses taught by these audience members. These hands-on design sessions have the potential to continue beyond the end of the special session. Participants will be invited to attend the BOF session entitled Enriching Computing Instruction with StudioBased Learning, which will take place immediately after this session. In addition, they can arrange additional meetings with SBL faculty during the rest of the conference. The proposed session involves significant audience interaction and elicitation of audience feedback. Forty percent of the time will be devoted to interaction with attendees. Besides, attendees will be free to view posters displayed on the walls of the room throughout the session. In addition to the aforementioned six posters, we will display posters with SBL evaluation results and

5. SUITABILITY FOR SPECIAL SESSION

Our proposed special session consists of a mix of several different types of activities: presentations, experience reports, discussions, Q & A periods, hands-on activities and posters. This mix is not accommodated by any of the regular SIGCSE sessions. We have been developing and refining these kinds of sessions in annual faculty development workshops since 2008. Based on our experiences, and resonant with the interactive nature of the SBL method, we believe that this mix of activities is the most appropriate means of meeting our stated objectives.

6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This special session is based on research conducted as part of a multi-university project supported by NSF under CPATH Awards CNS 0939055, 0939017 and 0939157. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of all teachers involved, as well as the other members of the research teamMargaret Ross, Michael Trevisan, and Rita Vick.

7. REFERNCES
[1] Hendrix, D., Myneni, L., Narayanan, N. H. and Ross, M. Implementing studio-based learning in CS2. In Proc. ACM SIGCSE Symposium, ACM Press, New York, 2010, 505-509. [2] Hundhausen, C.D., Agrawal, A. and Ryan, K. The design of an online environment to support pedagogical code reviews. In Proc. ACM SIGCSE Symposium, ACM Press, New York, 2010, 182-186. [3] Hundhausen, C.D., Agrawal, A., Fairbrother, D. and Trevisan, M. Does studio-based instruction work in CS 1? An empirical comparison with a traditional approach. In Proc. ACM SIGCSE Symposium, ACM Press, New York, 2010, 500-504. [4] Hundhausen, C. D., Narayanan, N. H. & Crosby, M. E. (2008). Exploring studio-based instructional models for computing education. In Proc. ACM SIGCSE Symposium, ACM Press, New York, 2008, 392-396.