The Synergistic Cycle of Teaching and Computing Education Research

Abstract

As instructors seek to design their courses to improve student experiences or outcomes, they can benefit from the rich literature on education, STEM education, and computing education. In turn, instructors have an opportunity to contribute to that literature by carefully designing and evaluating their courses. In this talk, we will examine a few examples of teaching informing my research or vice versa. These examples include using the educational literature to improve our introductory computing course, addressing our need to compare student learning between course offerings by creating a validated assessment, and leveraging our background working with students to better understand how students experience computing courses. Such efforts offer both the benefit of improving our own teaching experiences and contributing to the broader computing education community.