CRA

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CRA CDC Duke Summer Internship 2008

• Adventures in Alice Programming for Grades 5 - 12
• Gaetjens Lezin
• Professor Susan H. Rodger
• Duke University

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Introduction

• Computer Science Educational Research

• Sponsored by the National Science Foundation and
  IBM
• NSF Grant ESI-0624642
• Goals
• Obtain data about attitudes and how well middle
  school kids and teachers are able to learn Alice
• Figure out how to use the tool Alice, a 3D
  virtual worlds environment with a drag-n-drop
  interface to teach students in grade 5 12
  introductory programming
• Attract a diverse group of students to computer
  science and computing related careers

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Presenters

• Professor Susan H. Rodger - Computer Science
  Professor at Duke University
• Director of Alice Workshop 2008 at Duke
• rodger_at_cs.duke.edu
• Don Slater - Computer Science Lecturer at
  Carnegie Mellon University
• dslater_at_cmu.edu

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Research Assistants (Alice Team)

• Gaetjens Lezin - Binghamton University
  undergraduate
• Deborah Nelson - Duke University undergraduate
• Henry Qin - Duke University undergraduate

• Jenna Hayes Duke University undergraduate
• Ruthie Tucker - Duke University undergraduate

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Previous Work and StatisticsPublications

• Rodger, Susan H. An Innovative Approach with
  Alice for Attracting K-12 Students to Computing.
  Recent Paper Publications for Susan H. Rodger. 7
  May 2007. 14 July 2008 lthttp//www.cs.duke.edu/cse
  d/rodger/papers/ibmmay07.pdfgt.
• According to the Computing Research
  Associations fall 2000 report, 23,416 students
  selected Computer Science or computer engineering
  as their intended major
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• expect a 1.15 million rise in the number of IT
  jobs over the decade 2002-2012
• Cooper, Stephen, Wanda Dann, and Randy Pausch.
  ALICE A 3-D TOOL FOR INTRODUCTORY PROGRAMMING
  CONCEPTS. Apr. 200. July 2008 lthttp//www.sju.edu/
  scooper/alice/ccscne00.pdfgt.
• It is easy to say that they do not know how to
  solve problems. But this is too simplistic. -
  referring to student who are learning intro
  programming
• Cooper, Stephen, Kenneth J. Goldman, Martin
  Carlisle, Myles McNally, and Viera Proulx. Tools
  for Teaching Introductory Programming What
  Works? 2006. lthttp//dsys.cse.wustl.edu/resources/
  papers/gross-sigcse-2006.pdfgt.
• programming with purpose - refers to animation
  building with Alice is attractive to kids
• With immediate feedback, we have seen students
  understand concepts more and our course can cover
  more concepts without losing valuable hands-on
  experience.

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Cont

• Dann, Wanda, Stephen Cooper, and Randy Pausch.
  Objects Visualization of Behavior and State.
  June 2003. lthttp//www.sju.edu/scooper/alice/p109
  -dann.pdfgt.
• Alice is a rapid prototyping environment for 3D
  object behavior, designed to make it easy for
  novice programmers to develop interesting 3D
  animations and explore interactive 3D graphics
• Dann, Wanda, and Randy Pausch. Using
  Visualization To Teach Novices Recursion. July
  2001. lthttp//www.sju.edu/scooper/alice/p109-dann
  .pdfgt.
• Alice is a convenient and easy-to-use 3-D
  graphic animation tool that supports the
  pedagogical goals of the course, i.e. a
  fundamental introduction to objects, methods,
  decision statements, loops and recursion.
• Rodger, Susan H. An Innovative Approach with
  Alice for Attracting K-12 Students to Computing.
  Recent Paper Publications for Susan H. Rodger. 7
  May 2007. 14 July 2008 lthttp//www.cs.duke.edu/cse
  d/rodger/papers/ibmmay07.pdfgt
• We address the issues of attracting and
  retaining diverse group of students (especially
  women and underrepresented minorities) in
  computing by teaching students the Alice
  programming language

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Participating Research Sites

• Durham, North Carolina - Duke University
• Virginia Beach, Virginia
• San Francisco, California
• Denver, Colorado
• Charleston, South Carolina
• Oxford, Mississippi

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Program

• Teacher Training camp
• Schedule
• June 16 June 20, 2008
• June 23 June 27, 200
• Extended teacher camp and student camp
• July 7 11 , 2008
• July 14 18, 2008
• 35 High School and Middle School teachers
• Learn Alice
• Listen to lecture and participate in activity
• Create new Alice worlds to demonstrate concepts
  they have learned
• Alice World Demonstration
• Participate in animation shows to present the
  worlds they create
• Create lesson plans
• Must meet North Carolina public school standards
• Review and critique each others lesson plans

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Week 1 Teacher Training Camp Alice Worlds
The Alice Interface and code
The Alice Animation
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Cont
Alice World about math to demonstrate translations
Alice World that demonstrates what round, floor,
and ceiling functions do
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Concepts Taught

• Example Topics Covered During the Camps
• Introduction to using Alice
• Motion (translation and rotation) during scene
  set-up
• Problem Solving and Storyboard Design
  (Participants work on building a simple Alice
  storyboard)
• Storyboard -gt Code
• Revisiting translational and rotational motion
• Functions (built-in) and parameters
• Interactivity and Events
• Camera Control
• Participants work on building a world for their
  storyboard
• Repetition
• 3D Animation Tips
• Sound
• Group reviews, discussions of storyboards
  (Storyboards on the wall)
• Work Session Build a world from storyboard
  (second one)
• Animation Fair Demo of Day 3-4 worlds
• etc

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Assessment and Data Collection

• Obtaining information about
• Pretest and posttest
• teachers and students attitude towards computing
  is a very important part of the research project
• Also test of knowledge on Alice to evaluate what
  they have learned from the workshop
• Grading and assessment
• Completed tests were sent offsite to an evaluator
  in Colorado
• The results will serve as a main assessment tool
  for the research study
• The Alice Team at Duke University examined the
  student worlds that were made to assess what
  parts of Alice the students used

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Research Data Collection

• Database of Students and their Alice World
  information
• Age, Gender
• All tutorial information ex how complete, extra
  objects added, general comments
• Information on all the new worlds they created
• Type of objects added
• Number of objects added
• Concepts used and number of times used
• 35 students
• 131 Alice worlds made
• All Alice worlds created by students and teacher
  posted on Alice webpage
• http//www.cs.duke.edu/csed/alice/aliceInSchools

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Charts and Graphs
Chart of tutorial information Note that a
large number students completed each tutorial
(noted by the blue bars)
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Cont.
Detailed graph about the concepts the students
used in their worlds Notice more then half the
students used camera controls more than 4 times
in their worlds
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Conclusion

• Only time and more research will show if the
  Alice approach will in fact change the statistics
  and result in more students entering computing
  majors and pursuing computer related careers.
  The Alice Research Project 2008 at Duke
  University was a small part of a big effort to
  work towards a total solution for solving the
  growing problem of attracting and retaining a
  diverse group of students to computer science and
  computing careers.