The CS-Ed Podcast

Peer instruction is a way to move the easy-to-learn content to before lecture, so you can spend more time during lecture on developing understanding. In this teaching practice byte, we talk to Dr. Beth Simon from UC San Diego about peer instruction, what context she's used it in, how she does it, and nuanced details that aren't always discussed when reading about this active learning technique.

See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s4e6_tpb_peer_instruction/)

In this episode, we have Dr. Barbara Ericson, assistant professor from the School of Information at the University of Michigan. Our topic is Parson's Problems, which are like mixed-up code chunks that students need to put in the correct places. We discuss the research behind them, how she uses them in her class, and her current work investigating how to use Parson's Problems to improve student learning.

See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s4e5_parsons_problems/)

Philip Guo, an Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego, built Python Tutor, which is neither just for Python nor really a tutor. It's actually a tool to visualize what code is doing! In today's episode, he talks about the other programming languages it supports (Java, C, and C++), gives examples of how he uses it, and explains the nuances of when to use it.

See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s4e4_tpb_coding_tutor/)

In this episode, we talk with Professor Adam Blank, Teaching Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at Caltech. Our conversation focuses on college teaching faculty that only have a master's degree by discussing how the job title should be about a person's skills and knowledge, as opposed to the degrees they hold. We start off by defining terms, then move on to what a teaching faculty actually does and needs to know to do the job and how a Ph.D. is a proxy for signals that could be seen with different evidence.

See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s4e3_teaching_faculty_job_title/)

Teaching Practice Byte (TPB): In our first TPB episode we invite Colleen Lewis back to the podcast to talk about her physical models of Java that help her teach students how Java objects work. Colleen was originally on our podcast way back in Season one! We go into detail about what kinds of classes she uses these models in, what the models are, how she uses them, where they would and would not work, and where the idea came from.

See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s4e2_tpb_physical_java_models/)

We are kicking off season 4 with a deep conversation on academic misconduct with Dr. Oluwakemi Ola from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver Canada, and Dr. Mia Minnes from the University of California, San Diego. This episode was inspired from a panel we were on at the 2023 SIGCSE Technical Symposium called "Who's Cheating Whom: Changing the Narrative Around Academic Misconduct." In this episode, we go into more detail as we discuss how academic misconduct is handled at our respective institutions, how it impacts us, how our thinking about misconduct has changed over time, what we do to teach our students about misconduct, and how the systems around us influence our and the students' decisions around misconduct.

See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s4e1_academic_misconduct/)

Hello All! This is the CS-Ed Podcast. A podcast where we talk with educators about teaching computer science! We are gearing up for season 4 and we have big plans!

First, we've created a Patreon! Yes, that's right, the podcast is moving to become self-sustaining through audience support. If you'd like to keep this podcast ad and sponsor free, please consider becoming a Patreon member. Of course, please only chip in within your financial abilities. Think of it as buying the podcast a coffee or lunch once a month. I try to keep costs down to a minimum, but there are still costs to producing this podcast, even if I'm not paying myself. Your support would be much appreciated. Patreon members will get direct access to me to give feedback on the podcast, and I'll post exclusive content on what's coming up! You can find us at patreon.com/csedpodcast, that's patreon.com/csedpodcast. The link is also in this podcast description and on our website.

In addition, mixed in with our usual long-form deep conversations, we are going to bring in a new kind of episode TPB's, teaching practice bytes, that's bytes with a Y! Where I talk with a fellow CS educator about a practice they have in their classroom. And this is where you come in, my dear audience members. If you have or know someone with a good teaching practice, I'd love to hear about it! Please reach out to the podcast's email address at [email protected] or my own email address at [email protected]

And that's it for now. Please look out for the first episode of season 4 coming out soon. We are talking academic misconduct! Also, consider joining our Patreon at patreon.com/csedpodcast, and please reach out if you've got a good teaching tip or practice you'd like to share. Take care of yourself, and you'll hear from me again in this podcast feed soon.

How do you infuse a class to engage students with socially responsible computing? Kathi Fisler from Brown University discusses Brown’s undergraduate teaching assistant (UTA) program, where they hired UTAs to specifically focus on finding ways to do just that in the classes they were embedded in. In this episode, we talk about the program, how she teaches socially responsible computing in her intro computer science (CS) classes, and how her goal is to get students to ask the right questions. While she also lets go of needing to know the answers or even how to answer the questions.

See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s3ep12_socially_responsible_computing/)

This episode features Amy Ko et al.'s online book Critically Conscious Computing: Methods for Secondary Education. We discuss with Amy what is in the book, who the book is for, and how educators can use the book in their own teaching. The book focuses on contextualizing the history of computer science and how that history shows that computing is not neutral. In addition, it provides unit sketches to help teachers bring in more design critical conscious discussion into how they teach CS that will hopefully help all of our students better understand how computing affects our world.

See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s3ep11_critically_conscious_computing/)

Join us in a conversation with Iris Howley from Williams College about Primarily Undergrad Institutions (PUIs). Where we talk about what a PUI is, the research and teaching expectations, what the interview cycle is like, and compare a PUI professor with a teaching track professor. The biggest takeaway from this episode is that PUIs exist, they don't look like the school someone is getting their Ph.D. at, and they are an option post-graduation. More info is at http://bit.ly/cspui-jobs Finally, make sure to check the deadlines soon. They usually interview in the fall!

See the transcript on the website (https://csedpodcast.org/blog/s3ep10_primarily_undergraduate_institutions/)