Improving Lower-Division CS/CE Education -- Recent Experiences and Results

Abstract

In 2012, a group of professors, frustrated by high fail rates in lower-division computer science/engineering courses nationwide, set out to replace existing textbooks and homeworks with new learning content created natively for the web. Six years later, their content for over 15 CS/CE courses is currently used by 550 universities and 200,000 students, and growing.

We summarize research published over the past four years, showing improved learning outcomes, better grades and more lecture time for more examples, student activities, flipping, etc. We analyzed how universities give points for completing the reading activities and show that only a few course points (about 5 of 100) is sufficient to get over 80% completion rates. We show that most students use the content earnestly, with only a 3% "cheat the system" rate. We show that ultra-concise text can yield even further student learning improvements. We show that simplifying an intro course via fewer tools/logins, a simpler syllabus, fewer announcements, concise text, etc., yields happier less-stressed students. This talk introduces the web-native learning content, with a typical "book's" reading portion consisting of animations, interactive learning questions and aggressively-minimized text.

We present the case for intro courses to change from the traditional one-program-per-week approach to a many-small-programs (MSP) approach. We ran a controlled study Spring 2017, with one 80-student section using MSP, plus a 70%-full-credit threshold and collaboration allowed as well. Students were happier/less-stressed, and performed better on exams -- and continue to do well in the next course. Ultimately, interactive content and auto-grading enables new ways of teaching lower-division CS/CE courses.

Bio

Frank Vahid is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, Riverside, since 1994. He is also the co-founder of zyBooks. His research focus is embedded systems hardware and software, and for the past 6 years has also included CS/CE education. He is author of textbooks from Wiley, Pearson, and zyBooks on topics including digital design, embedded systems, C/C++, and VHDL/Verilog. He has received several teaching awards, including UCR Engineering's Outstanding Teacher award, and UCR's Innovative Teaching award in 2017. His work has been supported by the NSF (university and SBIR grants), SRC, the U.S. Dept. of Education, and companies such as Google and Intel. He received his B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine.