Several working groups will convene during ITiCSE 2002. A working group will consist of five to ten people who share a common interest related to the themes of the conference, selected on the basis of their qualifications in the area. Working groups will begin work by electronic communication two months before the conference. The working groups will meet at the conference site for the two days before the conference and throughout the conference. Each working group will determine its own meeting schedule.
Intermediate working group results will be presented to all conference attendees at a conference session. By the end of the conference each working group will have produced a robust draft of a report. Within four weeks the groups will submit a polished version of the report, which will be reviewed and edited under the supervision of the working group coordinator. Suitable reports will be published in the SIGCSE Bulletin and become part of the ACM Digital Library.
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An endorsement from this year's working group coordinator. I have been a member and/or a leader of working groups in five of the six ITiCSE conferences. I have rarely done anything more exciting or valuable. I have made a large number of professionally valuable international contacts through the groups and these have lasted. I've participated in important work of interest to myself an others. It has been fun, though intense. I recommend it highly. Joe Bergin |
The following working groups are open for participation. Contact the working groups coordinator and the leader of the group you would like to join. You must supply certain information as detailed on the members page.
Note that the working groups are not tutorials. The purpose is not to learn something about a topic of which you know little. Working groups bring experts (and future experts) on a topic together for intensive work. Occasionally a group might admit a person with little experience and a lot of enthusiasm, but these participants are definitely in the minority. The working group leaders will want to know what you can bring to the group and what you have done in the past.
For more information, contact the working groups coordinator: Joe Bergin (berginf@pace.edu)
Abstract
Creating new and interesting ways to teach programming, problem solving, and critical thinking in the first and second courses in the CS curriculum is an on going effort. Using Lego robots to do this is the focus of this working work.
Specifically, this working group will focus on event programming in the first two programming courses. It will focus on the use of Lego® Mindstorm Robots, Tiny VM and leJos (available from http://www.sourceforge.net) as vehicles for teaching event programming. The goal of the working group to create a group of exercises and corresponding objectives for the first two courses in the C.S. curriculum. Correspondingly, participants will be given an existing set of laboratory exercises, prior to the conference, asked to review, evaluate, and extend them and then to create exercises themselves.
While most participants will have some experience with event programming and robots, we also seek members with a broader educational view to help guide the pedagogical aspects of this work.
Members of this group are:
David J. Barnes, University of Kent
Michaele Duncan, East Tennessee State University
Michael Goldweber, Xavier University (Cincinnati)
Madeleine Schep, Columbia College (South Carolina)
Ralph Hollingsworth, Muskingum College
Abstract
Algorithm visualization (AV) has not yet fulfilled its pedagogical promises. At the same time, instructors lament that incorporating AV into their courses is too time-intensive. This working group therefore focuses on pedagogical strategies for effective AV incorporation with an impact on improving student understanding.
Participants should have some experience in using AV in instruction and be willing to share ideas on what can make AV usage effective or ineffective. At the early working group stages, these techniques will be collected together with examples. In Aarhus, the working group will focus on developing a strategy for coherently and systematically testing the effectiveness of the techniques. How can we define metrics for determining improved student understanding, if it occurs? The group's report will help provide the details for such testing.
After ITiCSE, the group members shall use AV in their instruction and monitor its effectiveness according to these metrics. The interaction between members will continue for comparing and reviewing results and building a solid basis for further instructional use of AV. The working group participants will hopefully collaborate in writing follow-up papers describing their efforts in more detail.
The website for this group is at http://www.animal.ahrgr.de/iticseWG.html
Members of this group are:
Wanda Dann, Ithaca College
Vicki Almstrum, University of Texas
Rocky Ross, University of Montana
Myles McNally, Alma College
Jay Anderson, Franklin and Marshall
Angel Velazquez, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
Chris Hundhausen, University of Hawaii
Susan Rodger, Duke University
Rudolf Fleischer, Honk Kong University of Science and Technology
Lauri Malmi, Helsinki University of Technology
Ari Kohonen, Helsinki University of Technology
Abstract
Information technology (IT) literacy is no longer acceptable. Workers can not survive professionally with a set of application-based skills because the application will either change significantly or be replaced during their careers. The CSTB [2] and the ACM-IEE Computer Society [1] have developed sets of goals for professionals in the 21st century involving the utilization of information technology, introducing the term fluency.
This working group endeavors to investigate the means to realize these goals, with focus on courses and programs at the undergraduate level. The number and diversity of colleges and universities alone makes this a sizeable task; moreover, any program implemented must consider the eventual changes in IT to have any chance of success. Still, the importance of this effort provides the motivation to tackle and propose ways around these obstacles.
The group will begin by discussing those environments of interest to the active members. It is envisioned that one person will act a lead for a specific environment type, and others will help with outlining the issues and suggesting alternatives.
The immediate goal for ITiCSE 2002 is to identify the significant issues confronted by computing departments, and solicit feedback from attendees before continuing with this ongoing project. Persons interested in participating should contact the group leader via email or the website (http://www.cs.haverford.edu/ITfluency).
[1] ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Task Force. Computing Curriculum 2001. http://www.computer.org/education/cc2001/
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[2] Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. Being Fluent with Information
Technology. National Academy Press, 1999.
Members of this group are:
Tony Clear, Auckland University of Technology
Steven Cooper, Saint Joseph's University
Tom Dececchi, Royal Military College of Canada
Brad Richards, Vassar College
Tadeusz Wilusz, Cracow University of Economics
Cheryl Sandas Bell Atlantic (associate member)
Robert Aiken Temple University (associate member)
Abstract
This working group will apply the collective wisdom of the participants to develop instructional material for enhancing the role of mathematical thinking and reasoning in computer science education. Mathematical thinking plays an important role in computer science based problem solving, and heightened awareness of this synergistic relationship within the computer science education community will lead to the development of better software systems. The need for more rigor in the curriculum, especially in the first two years, has been identified by the ITiCSE 2001 working group ³Striving for Mathematical Thinking² [1] and Computing Curricula 2001 [2].
The emphasis will be on the generation, collection, organization and dissemination of pedagogical resources for computer science educators. This includes: classroom examples, homework and laboratory exercises, recreational math and algorithmic problems, web based educational tools, and guidelines for incorporating mathematical thinking into curricula,
[1] http://www.math-in-cs.org ( search
for 'Striving' )
[2] http://www.acm.org/sigcse/cc2001/
( see section 9.1.1 )
Members of this group are:
Bill Marion Jr., Valparaiso University
Timothy J. Long, Ohio State University
Christelle Scharff, Pace University
Lew Hitchner, California Polytechnic State Universkty
Charles Riedesel, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Jane Fritz, Saint Joseph's College of New York
Abstract
A significant amount of research has been done over the years in determining the extent of cheating amongst university student populations and the reasons that cause students to cheat. What seems to be lacking in the literature has been the development of comprehensive strategies for educators to use to reduce the level of cheating in their courses.
This workshop proposes to start addressing the issue of how to reduce cheating amongst our students by examining the relevance of existing work on the subject and then extending it to practical strategies for reducing cheating. Firstly, the workshop would develop definitions of behaviors that could be regarded as cheating by computer science educators. A key issue to be addressed is that what may be cheating in one course may be perfectly acceptable behavior in another course and definitions of cheating will vary depending upon the educational objectives. Secondly, it would develop solutions to address the various forms of cheating that the working group has identified. Thirdly, the working group would look at doing an international comparison of the attitudes of faculty to cheating practices.
The final outcome of the working group would be to establish a website that provides a set of resources for educators who wish to address the problem of cheating amongst their students.
The working group home page is at: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~mdick/ITICSEWorkingGroup/index.html
Members of this group are:
Catherine C. Bareiss, Olivet Nazarene University
Janet Carter, University of Kent at Canterbury
Trevor Harding, Kettering University
Donald Joyce, UNITEC University of Technology
Cary Laxer, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
The E-Tools group has been withdrawn by its proposer. I am sorry for the inconvenience.
Abstract
A number of simple e-tools has been available for educational purposes for
some years, like e-mail, discussion groups, shared workspaces, tools for real
time communication like NetMeeting. Typical for these tools is that everybody
with a computer and a connection to internet, simple as these may be, can use
them. There are a fair number of practitioners reports about applications of
these tools in education. Reading these reports one gets the impression that
we are still living in pioneering days. There are no standards and hardly any
guidelines or hints for using these tools in education. Moreover, there seems
to be an emphasis on the technology of web-based learning, and not on educational
designs.
The working group should focus on educational design issues regarding the
use of e-tools in computer science education. The results of the group should
be:
If you wonder what it is like to lead or participate in a working group, you can look at the members page also.
You might also want to explore the ITiCSE History site. - This site includes a great deal of information about previous ITiCSE conferences, including working group information.
More information about the conference is on the main Conference Web Site.
Last Updated: July 9, 2002