Category Archives: constructivism

Join us to discuss developing students professional competencies in software engineering on Monday 8th April at 2pm BST (UTC +1)

Posted on by

Some competencies in software engineering are either difficult to teach and/or hard to measure, especially in a purely academic environment. Professional competencies in software engineering are often easier to learn in the workplace, rather than taught in a University lab, workshop or lecture theatre. What evidence can students provide of the professional competencies they develop while employed in a, workplace? Join us on Monday 8th April at 2pm BST (UTC+1) to discuss a paper on this published in this years SIGCSE technical symposium (sigcse2024.sigcse.org) by Matthew Barr, Oana Andrei, Alistair Morrison and Syed Waqar Nabi at the University of Glasgow [1]. From the abstract:

Competencies may be defined as the knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions that an individual is required to demonstrate in order to be considered professionally competent. Competency-based education has long been a feature of professional degree programs, but the discipline of Computing Science has only recently begun to embrace competencies as a means of structuring or evaluating students’ learning. Meanwhile, the practice of work-based learning – also well-established in other professional disciplines– has become more prevalent in Computing Science education, with increasing emphasis placed on work-based modes of learning, such as internships and apprenticeships. In this paper, we examine how students enrolled on a degree-level apprenticeship in Software Engineering have developed their professional competencies in the workplace. The paper is based on an analysis of 38 student assignments, wherein apprentices were asked to identify the competencies they have demonstrated, with reference to a portfolio of work. The UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence and Commitment, which outlines the competencies required for certification as an Incorporated Engineer, provided the necessary framework. Competencies relating to communication and inter-personal skills were among those most often cited by apprentices, with competencies relating to knowledge and understanding and design and development systems also featuring prominently. Competencies relating to responsibility, management, or leadership were less prevalent, with professional commitment proving to be the least commonly cited category of competencies. We provide examples of how apprentices claim to have demonstrated each competency, and discuss the implications of these findings for competency-based learning in Computing Science education

We’ll be joined by the co-authors who will give us a five-minute lightning talk summary of their paper to kick-off our discussion. All welcome, joining details at sigcse.cs.manchester.ac.uk/join-us

References

  1. Matthew Barr, Oana Andrei, Alistair Morrison, Syed Waqar Nabi (2024) The Development of Students’ Professional Competencies on a Work-Based Software Engineering Program, SIGCSE 2024: Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Pages 81–87, DOI:10.1145/3626252.3630944

CC licensed image from flaticon.com

Join us to discuss learning sciences for computing education on Monday 12th April at 2pm BST

Posted on by
Reply
Scientist icon made by Eucalyp flaticon.com

Learning sciences aims to improve our theoretical understanding of how people learn while computing education investigates with how people learn to compute. Historically, these fields existed independently, although attempts have been made to merge them. Where do these disciplines overlap and how can they be integrated further? Join us to discuss learning sciences for computing education via a paper by Lauren Margulieux, Brian Dorn and Kristin Searle, from the abstract:

This chapter discusses potential and current overlaps between the learning sciences and computing education research in their origins, theory, and methodology. After an introduction to learning sciences, the chapter describes how both learning sciences and computing education research developed as distinct fields from cognitive science. Despite common roots and common goals, the authors argue that the two fields are less integrated than they should be and recommend theories and methodologies from the learning sciences that could be used more widely in computing education research. The chapter selects for discussion one general learning theory from each of cognition (constructivism), instructional design (cognitive apprenticeship), social and environmental features of learning environments (sociocultural theory), and motivation (expectancy-value theory). Then the chapter describes methodology for design-based research to apply and test learning theories in authentic learning environments. The chapter emphasizes the alignment between design-based research and current research practices in computing education. Finally, the chapter discusses the four stages of learning sciences projects. Examples from computing education research are given for each stage to illustrate the shared goals and methods of the two fields and to argue for more integration between them.

There’s a 5 minute summary of the chapter ten minutes into the video below:



All welcome. As usual, we’ll be meeting on zoom, see sigcse.cs.manchester.ac.uk/join-us for details. Thanks to this months paper suggestions from Sue Sentance and Nicola Looker.

References

  1. Margulieux, Lauren E.; Dorn, Brian; Searle, Kristin A. (2019). “Learning Sciences for Computing Education“: 208–230. doi:10.1017/9781108654555.009. in In S. A. Fincher & A. V. Robins (Eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Computing Education Research. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Join us to discuss why minimal guidance doesn’t work on Monday 2nd November at 2pm GMT

Posted on by
Reply
Photo via NESA by Makers on Unsplash

Minimal guidance is a popular approach to teaching and learning. This technique advocates teachers taking a back seat to facilitate learning by letting their students get on with it. Minimal guidance comes in many guises including constructivism, discovery learning, problem-based learning, experiential learning, active learning, inquiry-based learning and even lazy teaching. According to its critics, unguided and minimally guided approaches don’t work. Join us to discuss why via a paper [1] published by Paul Kirschner, John Sweller and Richard Clark, here is the abstract:

Evidence for the superiority of guided instruction is explained in the context of our knowledge of human cognitive architecture, expert–novice differences, and cognitive load. Although unguided or minimally guided instructional approaches are very popular and intuitively appealing, the point is made that these approaches ignore both the structures that constitute human cognitive architecture and evidence from empirical studies over the past half-century that consistently indicate that minimally guided instruction is less effective and less efficient than instructional approaches that place a strong emphasis on guidance of the student learning process. The advantage of guidance begins to recede only when learners have sufficiently high prior knowledge to provide “internal” guidance. Recent developments in instructional research and instructional design models that support guidance during instruction are briefly described.

This is a controversial, heavily cited and politically motivated paper which has provoked numerous rebuttals, making it an ideal candidate for a juicy journal club discussion! Thanks to Quintin Cutts for this months #paper-suggestions via our slack channel at uk-acm-sigsce.slack.com.

As usual, we’ll be meeting on zoom, see sigcse.cs.manchester.ac.uk/join-us for details and meeting URLs.

References

  1. Kirschner, Paul A.; Sweller, John; Clark, Richard E. (2006). “Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching”. Educational Psychologist. 41 (2): 75–86. DOI: 10.1207/s15326985ep4102_1 (see also altmetric.com/details/564640 for online attention scores)