National Forum Teaching and Learning Research Fellowship Award!

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I am super thrilled to announce that I have been named one of the five inaugural Irish National Forum Teaching and Learning Research Fellowships! I was shortlisted from an initial field of 54 along with eight top-notch Irish T&L researchers. It’s super cool that two of these were UCD Colleagues (Geraldine O’Neill – who was also one of the five awardees – and Tara Cusack) and two others were AISHE colleagues (Bernadette Brereton and Ronan Bree).

The five fellows and information on their projects can be found on the National Forum website. My fellowship research is titled:

Teaching and Learning for the Next Era of Digital Innovation

This research aims to help teaching and learning in Ireland plan for the next digital era. It will explore how disciplines and departments are advancing towards emerging digital technologies with an eye to the future world into which graduates will enter. The project will inform the professional development of those who teach so that they might be better positioned to foster skills, knowledge and competencies to deal with realities that are hard to imagine from today’s perspective as technologies such as big data, the internet of things and artificial intelligence revolutionise all disciplines.

SIGCSE 2020 International “Buddy” Program

Computing, Conferences, Education, SIGCSE

This year I’m thrilled to be serving as the SIGCSE 2020 International Liaison. Although I originally hail from the US, I’ve been based in Ireland for decades and I attend US conferences as an “international” attendee. My first SIGCSE Technical Symposium was a bit overwhelming. I knew (of) many of those who attended my talk but they definitely didn’t know me! I also didn’t really connect much. It wasn’t until I participated in an ITiCSE working group that I really began to get involved in the SIGCSE community.

A number of recent comments have indicated opportunities to improve the experiences of SIGCSE attendees who are traveling from outside the US, and in particular for those attendees who are relative newcomers to the Symposium.

For the last decade (2010-2019 inclusive) the average symposium attendance was 1385. The average number of non-US attendees was 101 (7%). Excluding Canada, this falls to 71 (5%). In 2019, a record attendance year, these numbers were actually slightly lower percentage-wise. We would like to see these numbers improve.

I am happy to announce that this year the SIGCSE Symposium is piloting an “International Buddy Program”. Simply put, the program pairs up non-US attendees with more experienced attendees (from anywhere) to try and improve the experience of those coming from outside the US, and particularly those who are relatively new to the Symposium or the community. Everyone who registers for the Symposium will have an opportunity during registration, to sign up to be paired-up, either as a non-US attendee or as an experienced attendee. Of course this is optional! More details are available at https://www.brettbecker.com/sigcse2020/

I’d also like to thank the expanded International Committee for their service this year (listed below).

If you have any questions, feel free to email me directly.

Finally, if you are from outside the US and going to Portland, don’t forget to sign up for the international lunch during registration!

SIGCSE 2020 International Committee

Miles Berry University of Roehampton
Steven Bradley Durham University
Jennifer Campbell University of Toronto
Ernesto Cuadros-Vargas UTEC
Paul Denny University of Auckland
Rodrigo Duran Aalto University
Orit Hazzan Technion
Arto Hellas University of Helsinki
Amey Karkare IIT Kanpur
Carsten Kleiner Hochschule Hannover
Viraj Kumar Indian Institute of Science
Chao Mbogo Kenya Methodist University
Chris McDonald University of Western Australia
André Santos Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
Marco Silva Federal University of Technology
Lenandlar Singh University of Guyana
Hironori Washizaki Waseda University
Gary Wong University of Hong Kong
Ming Zhang Peking University

People of ACM Europe December 2019

Computing, Education, Ireland, SIGCSE

I am really happy to be featured in the “People of ACM Europe” December 2019. The questions I was asked were really interesting to answer. I noticed that each month the questions are really tailored to highlight the person’s role which is really cool. This coincided with the launch of the Ireland ACM SIGCSE Chapter which currently has over 150 members! The launch was fantastic – so great to see so many computing education folks in under the same roof!

Announcing the Ireland ACM SIGCSE Chapter!

Computing, Education, Ireland, SIGCSE

Along with Keith Quille and Catherine Mooney, I am thrilled to announce the chartering of the Ireland ACM SIGCSE chapter!*

*ACM -> Assoctation of Computing Machinery; SIGCSE -> Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education.

The mission of the Ireland ACM SIGCSE chapter is:

  • to provide a forum to promote Computing Education in Ireland at all levels of education, across all disciplines and sectors;
  • to promote Computing Education research and practice in Ireland and abroad;
  • to positively influence equality, diversity, and inclusion in computing, everywhere.

We now have nearly 100 members and anyone with an interest in Computing Education in Ireland can join the chapter. There are no dues, but membership in ACM and SIGCSE is encouraged. You can join the Ireland ACM SIGCSE Chapter at https://SIGCSEire.acm.org.

We are looking forward to the chapter launch, hosted by the School of Computer Science at University College Dublin on December 11, 2019 from 2-6pm. We are honoured to announce a keynote from Professor Amber Settle of DePaul Univerisity in Chicago, SIGCSE board member (immediate past-chair), who is going to officially launch the chapter. We will also have a keynote from Associate Professor Paul Dickson (Ithaca College, NY), and have welcome addresses from Associate Professor Chris Bleakley (Head of School of Computer Science, UCD) and Professor Joe Carthy (College Principal, College Of Science, UCD).

Registration for the chapter launch is free but essential (and separate to applying for membership). A link to the eventbrite registration page is available at https://SIGCSEire.acm.org. You can follow the Chapter on Twitter @SIGCSEire.

We look forward to working with you in a new era of Computing Education in Ireland!

Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE)

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via the conference chairs:

The Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE) is a high-quality international conference on research, teaching, and innovation in computing education. ACE 2020 will be held in cooperation with ACM SIGCSE. In additional to publishing research from leading computing education researchers, the ACE community is very welcoming and supportive of researchers who are new to computing education research, and practitioners who wish to discuss and develop good computing education practice.

Topics of interest for the conference include, but are not limited to:

  • the use of technology in computing education;
  • course content;
  • curriculum structure;
  • methods of assessment;
  • pedagogy and learning theories;
  • mobile, flexible, online learning, and
  • evaluations of alternative approaches.

ACE invites submission of research papers, practitioner papers, and workshops that foster collaborative research.

The Program Committee will select the papers to appear based on their potential to enhance learning outcomes in computing courses. Both research papers and practitioner papers must be between 5 and 10 pages long in total. Papers that are accepted and presented will appear in the ACE proceedings and will be published in the ACM Digital Library.

IMPORTANT DATES
All dates refer to 23:59, anywhere on earth on that day.

Sunday, 13 October 2019: Research Papers, Practitioner Papers, Workshop submissions due.

Sunday, 10 November 2019: Author Notifications
Friday, 15 November 2019: CORE Student Travel Award Applications (TBC)
Sunday, 24 November 2019: Camera-ready Copy
Friday, 20 December 2019: Early-bird Registration

3rd – 7th February 2020: Conference

RESEARCH PAPERS

Papers on research and innovations may be in the context of formal courses or self-directed learning; they may involve, for example, introductory programming, service courses, capstone courses, specialist undergraduate or postgraduate topics, or industry-related short courses. We welcome submissions directed at issues of current and local importance, as well as topics of international interest. Such topics may include the transition from school to university, articulation between vocational and university education, quality management in teaching, teaching people from other cultures, globalisation, attracting and retaining female students, online, mobile and blended learning.

PRACTITIONER PAPERS
In addition to research papers, ACE provides the opportunity for teachers to demonstrate new educational tools, and to share interesting teaching resources, assignments, and techniques that may be of broad interest to the community. We encourage the submission of papers that present interesting ways to teach challenging concepts, engaging activities that promote student learning, and compelling assignments.

COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH WORKSHOPS

Workshops at ACE are focused on establishing new collaborative research projects and broadening existing projects. This is an ideal opportunity to expand an existing project to a multi-institutional study by engaging researchers from a variety of institutions, or to establish projects with other like-minded researchers.

We welcome submissions from researchers who intend to lead collaborative research activities with the expectation that participants in the workshops would have the opportunity to join the research project and potentially produce future collaborative research outputs. Proposals for workshops should be 1-2 pages long, and should not be annonymised. The submission should clearly outline the research project, and how the workshop will broaden collaboration in the CS Education community.

Workshop proposals do not have to use standard ACM templates – text should simply be formatted to ensure it is readable for the program chairs. Workshops that are accepted will not appear in the proceedings, but it is anticipated that workshops will lead to future publications.

REVIEW PROCESS
All research and practitioner papers will be fully refereed using a double-blind reviewing process. Workshop proposals will be reviewed by the ACE chairs and will not be blind-reviewed.

Conflict of Interest
Reviewers are expected to declare a conflict of interest for any paper that they have a personal involvement with (e.g., if they have collected data, provided feedback on a draft, or are formally listed as a co-author). A reviewer will not be allocated to review a paper for which they have declared a conflict of interest, will not know who has been allocated to review that paper, and will not see the reviews until notification.

The chairs of ACE are permitted to submit papers. In this case, the submitting chair declares a conflict of interest and the co-chair takes responsibility for managing the review process for that paper. The submitting chair will never see who reviews the paper, and will not see the reviews until notification. All reviews and decision-making on the paper are made by the co-chair who is not involved in the paper. ACE will not accept papers co-authored by both chairs, as that would render the process unworkable.

MORE INFORMATION
ACE is held in conjunction with Australasian Computer Science Week (ACSW). ACSW arranges the venues and registrations for all ACSW conferences. Additionally, ACSW accepts Poster submissions for work in progress and offers several workshops that may be of interest. For information refer to the ACSW website:

http://www.acsw.org.au/
For more information about ACE, including formatting requirements and submission details, refer to the ACE website:

https://aceconference.wordpress.com/

To contact the chairs, please use the conference EasyChair email address shown below, which will be directed to the chairs.

[email protected]

CONFERENCE CHAIRS

Andrew Luxton-Reilly, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Claudia Szabo, The University of Adelaide, Australia

UK and Ireland Computing Education Research Conference

Conferences, cszero.wordpress.com, Education, Ireland, SIGCSE

This year, Neil Brown and I are serving as program co-chairs of the new UK and Ireland Computing Education Research (UKICER) conference. It will be held at the University of Kent on 5-6th September 2019. The committee includes Janet Carter as conference chair, along with Sally Fincher, Quintin Cuttsand Steven Bradley. Steven has been running the Computing Education Practice conference at Durham for the past few years, which has grown impressively. We believe that there is a growing community of computing education researchers in the UK and Ireland, but we do not have a local conference to support this community’s growth. Our hope is that this sister conference to CEP will provide a useful outlet to share Irish and British computing education research, and encourage research collaborations.

The conference will run roughly from lunchtime on the 5th to lunchtime on the 6th, with some collaboration-building events beforehand and some workshops afterwards. We thus invite submissions of research papers (max 6 pages, ACM format), and proposals for 1-2 hour workshops, by the beginning of June. More details are available on the conference website. Please feel free to send any questions to [email protected] and please do share this news with anyone you think might be interested in submitting or attending. We hope to see a variety of researchers and educators for all age groups.

SIGCSE 2019 paper #3: What Do CS1 Syllabi Reveal About Our Expectations of Introductory Programming Students?

Computing, Conferences, cszero.wordpress.com, Education, Programming, SIGCSE

Today I am presenting my third and final paper at the ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. It is titled “What Do CS1 Syllabi Reveal About Our Expectations of Introductory Programming Students?” My coauthor is Thomas Fitzpatrick who was at the time an undergraduate student at UCD and is now pursuing a PhD there. Full details including the full paper, slides, and dataset we used in the paper are available at cszero.

SIGCSE 2019 Paper #2 – Best Paper Award

Computing, Conferences, cszero.wordpress.com, Education, Programming, SIGCSE

I was thrilled to learn that a paper I co-authored, First Things First: Providing Metacognitive Scaffolding for Interpreting Problem Prompts, was selected for the best Computer Science Education Research paper award at the 2019 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education.

I had a great time working on this project with my co-authors: James Prather, Ray Pettit, Paul Denny, Dastyni Loksa, Alani Peters, Zachary Albrecht and Krista Masci, and I look forward to future work with them in this area. The paper will be presented on Friday, March 1 at SIGCSE 2019 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at 11:10AM. Full details are available over on cszero.