ABSTRACT
Background. Software Engineering (SE) is a new and emerging topic in secondary computer science classrooms. However, a review of the recent literature has identified an overall lack of reporting on the development of SE secondary curriculum. Previous studies also report low student engagement when teaching these concepts. Objectives. In this experience report, we discuss the development of a 9-week, project-based learning (PBL) SE curriculum for secondary students. During this curriculum, students create a socially relevant project in groups of two to three. We discuss displays of participant engagement with CS concepts through the PBL pedagogy and the SE curriculum. Method. We examine participant engagement through group artifact interviews about student experiences during a week-long, virtual summer camp that piloted activities from our curriculum. During this camp, students followed a modified SE life cycle created by the authors of the paper. Findings. Participants showed engagement with the curriculum through various aspects of PBL, such as autonomy, creativity, and personal interest in their project topic. Implications. The lessons learned from this experience report suggest that PBL pedagogy can increase student engagement when teaching CS concepts, and this pedagogy provides detail and structure for future secondary SE curriculum implementations to support educators in the classroom.
- Lauren Alvarez, Isabella Gransbury, Veronica Cateté, Tiffany Barnes, Akos Lédeczi, and Shuchi Grover. 2022. A Socially Relevant Focused AI Curriculum Designed for Female High School Students. Thirty-sixth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (2022).Google ScholarCross Ref
- Margarita Azmitia and Ryan Montgomery. 1993. Friendship, transactive dialogues, and the development of scientific reasoning. Social development 2, 3 (1993), 202–221.Google Scholar
- Corey Brady, Brian Broll, Gordon Stein, Devin Jean, Shuchi Grover, Veronica Cateté, Tiffany Barnes, and Ákos Lédeczi. 2022. Block-based abstractions and expansive services to make advanced computing concepts accessible to novices. Journal of Computer Languages (2022), 101156.Google Scholar
- Brian Broll, Akos Lédeczi, Gordon Stein, Devin Jean, Corey Brady, Shuchi Grover, Veronica Catete, and Tiffany Barnes. 2021. Removing the Walls Around Visual Educational Programming Environments. In 2021 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC). IEEE, 1–9.Google Scholar
- Brian Broll, Akos Lédeczi, Peter Volgyesi, Janos Sallai, Miklos Maroti, Alexia Carrillo, Stephanie L Weeden-Wright, Chris Vanags, Joshua D Swartz, and Melvin Lu. 2017. A visual programming environment for learning distributed programming. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. 81–86.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Brian Broll, Péter Völgyesi, János Sallai, and Akos Lédeczi. 2016. NetsBlox: A visual language and web-based environment for teaching distributed programming.Google Scholar
- Stephen J Ceci, Donna K Ginther, Shulamit Kahn, and Wendy M Williams. 2014. Women in academic science: A changing landscape. Psychological science in the public interest 15, 3 (2014), 75–141.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jan Cuny. 2015. Transforming K-12 computing education: AP® computer science principles. ACM Inroads 6, 4 (2015), 58–59.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Edward L Deci and Richard M Ryan. 1985. The general causality orientations scale: Self-determination in personality. Journal of research in personality 19, 2 (1985), 109–134.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Allan Fisher and Jane Margolis. 2003. Unlocking the clubhouse: Women in computing. In Proceedings of the 34th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education. 23.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Alexandre Grotta and Edmir Parada Vasques Prado. 2019. Benefits of the Project-Based Learning to Cope with Computer Programming Education: A Systematic Literature Review. http://pbl2019.panpbl.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/AlexandreGrottaBenefitsoftheproject-basedlearning.pdfGoogle Scholar
- Shuchi Grover, Veronica Cateté, Tiffany Barnes, Marnie Hill, Akos Ledeczi, and Brian Broll. 2020. FIRST principles to design for online, synchronous high school CS teacher training and curriculum co-design. In Koli Calling’20: Proceedings of the 20th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research. 1–5.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Francisco J Gutierrez, Jocelyn Simmonds, Nancy Hitschfeld, Cecilia Casanova, Cecilia Sotomayor, and Vanessa Peña-Araya. 2018. Assessing software development skills among K-6 learners in a project-based workshop with scratch. In 2018 IEEE/ACM 40th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET). IEEE, 98–107.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Felienne Hermans and Efthimia Aivaloglou. 2017. Teaching Software Engineering Principles to K-12 Students: A MOOC on Scratch. In 2017 IEEE/ACM 39th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training Track (ICSE-SEET). 13–22. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-SEET.2017.13Google ScholarDigital Library
- Martin Hoegl and Hans Georg Gemuenden. 2001. Teamwork Quality and the Success of Innovative Projects: A Theoretical Concept and Empirical Evidence. Organization Science 12, 4 (2001). https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/orsc.12.4.435.10635Google Scholar
- Geetha Kanaparan, Rowena Cullen, David Mason, 2019. Effect of self-efficacy and emotional engagement on introductory programming students. Australasian Journal of Information Systems 23 (2019).Google Scholar
- Virginia Grow Kasser and Richard M Ryan. 1999. The relation of psychological needs for autonomy and relatedness to vitality, well-being, and mortality in a nursing home 1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 29, 5 (1999), 935–954.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Chris Michael Kirk, Rhonda K Lewis, Kyrah Brown, Corinne Nilsen, and Deltha Q Colvin. 2012. The gender gap in educational expectations among youth in the foster care system. Children and Youth Services Review 34, 9 (2012), 1683–1688.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Joseph S Krajcik and Namsoo Shin. 2014. Project-based learning. In The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences, R Keith Sawyer (Ed.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 275–297.Google Scholar
- Ákos Lédeczi, Shuchi Grover, Veronica Catete, and Brian Broll. 2021. Beyond CS Principles: Bringing the Frontiers of Computing to K12. In Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. 1379–1379.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Janet Liebenberg, Elsa Mentz, and Betty Breed. 2012. Pair programming and secondary school girls’ enjoyment of programming and the subject Information Technology (IT). Computer Science Education 22, 3 (2012), 219–236.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Yngve Lindsjørn, Dag I.K. Sjøberg, Torgeir Dingsøyr, Gunnar R. Bergersen, and Tore Dybå. 2016. Teamwork quality and project success in software development: A survey of agile development teams. Journal of Systems and Software 122 (2016), 274–286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2016.09.028Google ScholarDigital Library
- Moira Maguire and Brid Delahunt. 2017. Doing a thematic analysis: A practical, step-by-step guide for learning and teaching scholars.All Ireland Journal of Higher Education 9, 3 (2017).Google Scholar
- Microsoft Corporation. 2017. Why Europe’s Girls Aren’t Studying STEM. https://news.microsoft.com/europe/features/dont-european-girls-like-science-technology/. Accessed: 2021-12-01.Google Scholar
- L Dee Miller, Leen-Kiat Soh, Vlad Chiriacescu, Elizabeth Ingraham, Duane F Shell, Stephen Ramsay, and Melissa Patterson Hazley. 2013. Improving learning of computational thinking using creative thinking exercises in CS-1 computer science courses. In 2013 ieee frontiers in education conference (fie). IEEE, 1426–1432.Google Scholar
- Marina Papastergiou. 2008. Are computer science and information technology still masculine fields? High school students’ perceptions and career choices. Computers & education 51, 2 (2008), 594–608.Google Scholar
- Fernando D. C. Pinheiro, Von W. Christiane Gresse, and Raul M. Filho. 2018. Teaching Software Engineering in K-12 Education: A Systematic Mapping Study. Informatics in Education 17, 2 (2018), 167–206. Copyright - Copyright Institute of Mathematics and Informatics 2018; Last updated - 2019-04-15.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Richard M Ryan, Edward L Deci, 2002. Overview of self-determination theory: An organismic dialectical perspective. Handbook of self-determination research 2 (2002), 3–33.Google Scholar
- Oshani Seneviratne. 2017. Making computer science attractive to high school girls with computational thinking approaches: A case study. In Emerging research, practice, and policy on computational thinking. Springer, 21–32.Google Scholar
- Gwen Solomon. 2003. Project-based learning: A primer. Technology and learning-dayton- 23, 6 (2003), 20–20.Google Scholar
- Gordon Stein, Isabella Gransbury, Devin Jean, Lauren Alvarez, Marnie Hill, Veronica Catete, Shuchi Grover, Tiffany Barnes, Brian Broll, and Akos Ledeczi. 2022. Engaging Female High School Students in the Frontiers of Computing. In 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition.Google Scholar
- Zoom Video. 2020. Video conferencing, web conferencing, webinars, screen sharing.Google Scholar
- Shiyuan Wang, Duane F Shell, Abraham Flanigan, Markeya Peteranetz, and Leen-Kiat Soh. 2017. Impact of Creative Competency Exercises on College Computer Science Students’ Learning, Achievement, Self-Efficacy, and Creativity.AERA Online Paper Repository (2017).Google Scholar
- David Weintrop. 2019. Block-based programming in computer science education. Commun. ACM 62, 8 (2019), 22–25.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Laurie Williams, Lucas Layman, Jason Osborne, and Neha Katira. 2006. Examining the compatibility of student pair programmers. In AGILE 2006 (AGILE’06). IEEE, 10–pp.Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Project-Based Software Engineering Curriculum for Secondary Students
Recommendations
CSTA K-12 CS Standards for All (Abstract Only)
SIGCSE '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science EducationComputer Science education in the K-12 school system is in the forefront of education news. Schools, districts, and states are looking for guidance in developing and delivering standards-based computer science curriculum in K-12 schools, and many are ...
Where Are We Now?: Results from a National Study of Computer Science Teachers and Teaching
SIGCSE '19: Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science EducationThe National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education has provided nationally representative data about the status of K-12 science and mathematics education periodically over the past 40 years. In 2018, the sixth iteration of the study, the study's ...
Comments