Driving Advances in Computing Education through

Application of Educational Psychology Principles

By Richard Catrambone (School of Psychology) and Mark Guzdial (School of Interactive

Computing)

Goal: Learn to program without hours in front of the IDE

Studying the issues ofIn-service CS Teacher Education

• Study of adult/professional students in CS classes.– They don’t have the time to spend hours in front of

the IDE.– Lacking background, e.g., in mathematics.– They get stymied by small errors.

Could teachers learn CS the way that they learn anything else?

• Designing CS instruction as we would other forms of instruction.• Study from a book?

– Bad idea: Ed psych says text (programs) + text (explanation) => cognitive overload

• Maybe an ebook text+narration– With links to necessary background knowledge

• With lots of examples– Catrambone has expertise in choosing and structuring examples for

learning (Catrambone & Yusa, 2006; Gerjets, Scheiter, & Catrambone, 2006; Catrambone, 1998)

• And practice on syntax– Like phonics for learning language– More practice with feedback is better for learning