Related papers: Fostering Computational Thinking
In the half century since the 1950s computer simulation has transformed our understanding of physics. The rare, expensive, slow, and bulky mainframes of World War II have given way to today's millions of cheap, fast, desksized workstations…
The ubiquity of technology in our daily lives and the economic stability of the technology sector in recent years, especially in areas with a computer science footing, has led to an increase in computer science enrollment in many parts of…
Integrating computation into physics teaching is a curricular move that, at present, has been predominately studied for its cognitive impacts. However, if this modality of instruction shifts how students engage with physics, we argue there…
This paper investigates how high school students approach computing through an introductory computer science course situated in the Logic Programming (LP) paradigm. This study shows how novice students operate within the LP paradigm while…
The computing education community has a rich history of pedagogical innovation designed to support students in introductory courses, and to support teachers in facilitating student learning. Very recent advances in artificial intelligence…
Quantum computing is a rapidly evolving field encompassing various disciplines such as physics, mathematics, computer engineering, and computer science. Teaching quantum computing in a concise and effective manner can be challenging,…
Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT have quickly become part of student programmers' toolkits, whether allowed by instructors or not. This paper examines how introductory programming (CS1) students integrate LLMs into their…
Memcomputing is a novel paradigm of computation that utilizes dynamical elements with memory to both store and process information on the same physical location. Its building blocks can be fabricated in hardware with standard electronic…
A primary goal of physics is to create mathematical models that allow both predictions and explanations of physical phenomena. We weave maths extensively into our physics instruction beginning in high school, and the level and complexity of…
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) focus on manifold subjects, ranging from social sciences over languages to technical skills, and use different means to train the respective skills. MOOCs that are teaching programming skills aim to…
The Mathematization project investigates students' use of mathematical tools across the undergraduate physics curriculum. As a part of this project, we look at intermediate mechanics students' written homework solutions to understand how…
The increase of existing computational capabilities has made simulation emerge as a third discipline of Science, lying midway between experimental and purely theoretical branches [1, 2]. Simulation enables the evaluation of quantities which…
Instructors have limited time and resources to help struggling students, and these resources should be directed to the students who most need them. To address this, researchers have constructed models that can predict students' final course…
Software testing is a complex, intellectual activity based (at least) on analysis, reasoning, decision making, abstraction and collaboration performed in a highly demanding environment. Naturally, it uses and allocates multiple cognitive…
The ability to develop, use, and refine models of experimental systems is a nationally recognized learning outcome for undergraduate physics lab courses. However, no assessments of students' model-based reasoning exist for upper-division…
Computational reductions are an important and powerful concept in computer science. However, they are difficult for many students to grasp. In this paper, we outline a concept for how the learning of reductions can be supported by…
The Georgia Tech blended introductory calculus-based mechanics course emphasizes scientific communication as one of its learning goals, and to that end, we gave our students a series of four peer-evaluation assignments intended to develop…
Providing feedback on programming assignments manually is a tedious, error prone, and time-consuming task. In this paper, we motivate and address the problem of generating feedback on performance aspects in introductory programming…
Fermions are fundamental particles which obey seemingly bizarre quantum-mechanical principles, yet constitute all the ordinary matter that we inhabit. As such, their study is heavily motivated from both fundamental and practical incentives.…
The ability to categorize problems based upon underlying principles, rather than contexts, is considered a hallmark of expertise in physics problem solving. With inspiration from a classic study by Chi, Feltovich, and Glaser, we compared…