EDEC 575 / COMP 598: The Teaching of Computer Science - Assessment

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Assessment

• 10% participation in class discussions and/or in Teams chats and/or Perusall
• 20% weekly group assignments
• 10% feedback for fellow students
• 10% final project proposal (may be completed in groups)
• 15% final project milestone (may be completed in groups)
• 35% final project report (may be completed in groups)

Course Learning Goals

1. Create computer science learning opportunities for varied contexts (non-CS class, different technical levels, differents backgrounds; differents levels, class size)
2. Critically analysing what is and is not part of a “typical“ computer science education (ethics, teacher training, continuous learning, equity/inclusion)
3. Explore the socio-historical context of CS education, and how it looks today. (e.g. teacher training, ethics, etc)

Template for Reports

• Times New Roman size 12
• 3cm margins
• 1.5 line spacing
• Header: includes your name and assignment's title (e.g. EDEC 575 Milestone 1, EDEC 575 Final Paper)
• Footer: page number and page count (e.g. 1 / 5)
• APA or APA-like citations (we won't be strict about citation formatting)
• Numbered section headers

Final project

Due: two weeks after final class (extensions available upon request)

Page limit: 6 pages, plus 2 pages for every additional group member (e.g. a 3-person group would have a 10 page limit). This limit does not include bibliography nor appendices.

Your final project must explicitly demonstrate attainment of two of the three course-level learning goals for the course (your choice of which two).

Example project ideas:

• Creating an online learning module, testing it out on your peers, writing about the experience and how addresses limitations of a typical CS class [LG1 + LG2]
• Creating a new and nifty CS assignment, testing it out on your peers, and writing about the experience and how it addresses limitations of a typical CS class [LG1 + LG2]
• Teaching a live CS class (as a guest lecture in an existing class, or in this class), and then writing about it with relevant historical context [LG1 + LG3]
• A research paper on some piece of the socio-historical context of how CS is taught and how that explains a limitation of the status quo [LG2 + LG3]

You are explicitly encouraged to pick a project that will be of use to you outside the purview of this course. For example, writing a literature review that could be used as a chapter in your thesis/candidacy papers. Or developing a new assignment for a course you teach regularly, that you can also put in your teaching portfolio.

Project Proposal

Page limit: 3 pages

How to submit: in the #Projects channel, post a URL to an annotatable copy of your proposal (e.g. Google Docs, Overleaf) that your peers can collaboratively annotate

Using the report template (see above), answer using point-form:

1. What would you like to do for your project? [200-400 words]
2. Why do you want to do it? [100-300 words]
3. Provide a rough timeline and list of things you'll need. Propose a deliverable to be your "milestone" at the end of term. [100-400 words]
4. How will it benefit you beyond this course? [50-200 words]
5. Which two course learning goals will it address and how? [200-400 words]
6. What are some backup options you're considering? [100-200 words]

Project Milestone

The purpose of the Project Milestone is to for you to submit an intermediate stage of your project for feedback. It is primarily for formative feedback and its nature will depend on your project.

For example, if you are writing a literature review, your milestone could be an annotated bibliography. Or if you are creating teaching materials, you should have them drafted and piloted them on your peers, but haven't written up your reflection.

The more complete your project is by this stage, the more feedback you'll be able to get!