Assignments

Participation

10% of grade.

All the real learning in this class will occur in the discussion. I expect to see everyone at class and reading the papers (Syllabus

). In borderline cases, my recollection of who was in class and participating will influence the final grade.

Homework #1: Get Certified for Human Subjects Training

Due by Jan. 24. 5% of grade

Go to http://www.compliance.gatech.edu/IRB/
Take the Required Training
Get Certified

(It's worth 5 points toward the 100 points of your grade to do it. However, if you don't do it, you can't do your final study, so the cost of not doing it is greater than 5 points.)

PLEASE EMAIL ME WHEN YOU ARE READY FOR ME TO ADD YOU TO THE PROTOCOL! All students are required to follow the constraints described in the protocol, e.g., following the recruitment process, the restrictions on subjects (i.e., no one who reports to you in any way!), etc.

Consent Form: irbcsed-research-consentform.pdf

Homework #2: What do you want students to learn about computing?

Or, what do YOU want to learn about how people think about computing?

Due by Feb. 12. 25% of grade.

You have two choices for a major project in this class.

You can either try to teach something – any kind of intervention that you think will really work. You could build a text, a videogame, a visualization, a multimedia lecture, whatever.
You can try a small study to find out something about how people think about computing. For example, uou could ask introductory students to try a small task, then observe them and ask them how it went. Or you could ask non-programmers to undertake some activity and study how they do it. It's your choice.

On Feb. 12, you owe me a paper (probably around five pages) describing what you are going to do. In both cases, I expect to see references to research literature. Think about this as a mini-proposal – why I should think that this is worth doing.

If you are developing an intervention, you describe to me what it is you are going to do and why you think it should work.
If you are developing a study, you describe to me what you are going to ask people to do and what you expect to see (or what it's uniquely different from other approaches that have been tried.) I don't need an assessment design here – just the design of the protocol, and the research justification for the study.

I will be grading on

clarity of description,
quality of intervention or experiment design, and
demonstration of understanding of the literature read in class.

Homework #3: Poster/Demo session

Week of March 4-6. 25% of grade.

By the 9th week, you should be ready to trial your intervention or study, and have your assessment in place. Each member of the class will trial their intervention or study on others in class. You are to have hardcopy of your assessment (if it's a survey or interview guide) or your assessment plan (if it's observational or a log file study) to hand in.

I will be grading on:

reasonableness (i.e., my judgement that you can actually pull this off),
quality in terms of meeting goals (for an intervention, to tell you if anyone learned anything from the intervention; for an experiment, to tell you how subjects before training perform the task.)
clarity of plan (e.g., I can understand what you're planning to do.)

Homework #4: SIGCSE

Due March 14: 10% of grade.

During Week #10 (March 11 and 13), the world's largest conference of CS Education practitioners and researchers will be held in Portland, Oregon. We will not have class that week.

Read two of the papers presented that week (Program: http://db.grinnell.edu/sigcse/sigcse2008/Program/Program.asp) and write a summary (probably about a page on each). Pick two papers that you find interesting. Describe the topic of the paper, what's new about it, and how it compares to the other literature in the class. Mail me your paper by 5 pm March 14, so that I can grade it on the flight back from Portland. (Encouraged behavior: Pick the paper before the conference, ask/cajole/beg/bribe someone attending the conference to go to that paper and give you their impressions, description of Q&A, etc. for inclusion in your review.)

Trial

You must run at least three subjects each through your intervention or study.
During the week of Week 13, we will not be meeting in class. You can use this time to schedule subjects.

Homework #5: Final presentation and paper

Presentation in Week #15 (April 22-24), Paper due 4/28. 25% of grade.

Sign up for a presentation slot on Syllabus

. Spend 30 minutes explaining what you did and what you found.
Prepare a paper (expecting around 5 pages, more is allowable, less is suspect) summarizing what you did and what you found.

I will grade on:

Care in presenting the method, results, and discussion.
Insight presented in discussion. What did you learn?
Relations described comparing results to what is known. Did you learn anything new?

Last modified 21 January 2008 at 3:14 pm by Mark Guzdial