Learning by teaching (LbT) is a pedagogical method in which teaching-students enhance their learning and understanding of a subject by teaching it to learning-students. To this end, flip cards are valuable and engaging teaching material. However, teaching-students need clear and intuitive instructions to create quality flip cards. Picking up from that need, we propose a platform that guides teaching-students step-by-step by creating a set of flip cards for teaching robotics to children. The platform is a user-friendly, intuitive, and inclusive operational tool that facilitates teachers and teaching-students in implementing LbT by implementing design heuristics. Additionally, the platform unlocks new opportunities that can be integrated into LbT, such as using artificial intelligence tools. To show the potential of our idea, we describe a Proof of Concept and discuss the benefits and challenges related to implementing it.

In this paper, we discuss how students adopt and leverage generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools, and how the detail and power of GenAI use vary depending on the level of detail in which prompting patterns are taught. To do it, we analyze the experience analyzing a collection of student-generated prompts for GenAI. The observed group used GenAI after receiving basic instruction on the concepts and being assigned a specific task to complete using GenAI. We identified practices in the formulation of prompts, focusing on characteristics or strategies (like prompt patterns, role specification, and iterative refinement). Our study identifies and quantifies these patterns to understand how students approach problem-solving and information retrieval using GenAI under basic guidance. By analyzing these prompts produced by students, we aim to contribute valuable empirical evidence to the growing understanding of how students are using GenAI and its implications for Education.

Non-conventional learning experiences (such as hackathons and coding camps) are used to promote inclusion and attract more girls to STEM. However, a current lack of operational tools hinders the practitioners’ efforts to have a systematic approach to make these learning experiences more inclusive and appealing to girls, and prevents them from having the means to appraise the effectiveness of their initiatives in this regard. This paper bridges this gap by introducing a comprehensive assessment framework based on existing literature and presenting the results of a case study analyzing a real coding camp using the proposed assessment framework. The case study includes data on inclusion and gender balance in the last six editions of the coding camp to assess the reliability of the framework. Although further evaluation is necessary, the case study indicated promising results: the assessment framework provided an accurate representation of the coding camp’s diversity, inclusion and gender balance, offering valuable insights for improvement.

This research full paper presents findings on whether different hybrid work configurations during coding camps result in equal quality products.- Background: Hybrid work has become the new normal way of working for many professionals, including software developers - some work from home, others from their office, and others from a combination of both. Thus, educating people on hybrid work is crucial. However, there is a lack of evidence and guidance to support educators in organizing hybrid non-conventional learning experiences, such as coding camps and hackathons. Research question: How do different hybrid work configurations impact the final product teams develop during coding camps for upper secondary school students? Methodology: We organized a hybrid coding camp at our university to teach upper secondary school students (aged 15-19) Agile-based Software Engineering practices and enhance their ability to develop high-quality software. The 180 participants (75% M; 25% F) had diverse backgrounds and little or no previous software development experience. The camp lasted 20 hours and integrated components from two baseline camps (onsite and online). We randomly assigned the 60 teams to two groups following different hybrid work configurations and compared the mobile apps they developed. Moreover, we compared all the apps of the hybrid coding camp to those of the baseline camps. Findings: The quality of the hybrid, onsite, and online coding is similar. The products of the two hybrid work configurations have similar quality. One configuration places slightly more emphasis on the User Interface, whereas the other concentrates slightly more on programming logic. This work has direct implications for educators, who can use both configurations without affecting the overall quality of the product.

research-article Open Access Share on A Facilitator's Guide to Create and Consolidate a Teenage Coding Camp Authors: Ilenia Fronza Free University of Bozen/Bolzano Free University of Bozen/BolzanoSearch about this author , Luis Corrali ITESM Campus ITESM CampusSearch about this author Authors Info & Claims ACM InroadsVolume 15Issue 2June 2024pp 31–38https://doi.org/10.1145/3643726Published:10 May 2024Publication History 0citation0DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations0Total Downloads0Last 12 Months0Last 6 weeks0 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Publisher SiteView all FormatsPDF

While entering the post-COVID-19 pandemic phase, to define a new normal way of working, some companies are transitioning toward a permanent WFX model, while others are combining WFX with colocated work (i.e., hybrid work). Therefore, fostering WFX skills (usually classified as soft skills) in early-career students becomes crucial;additionally, it can help reduce early school leaving. This work aims at understanding how business simulation projects foster the WFX skills deemed crucial by industries. To this end, we conducted two case studies involving high school students. The final questionnaire revealed that most participants evaluate their WFX as fair or higher. Moreover, they believe that business simulation projects help in developing WFX skills. Based on our results we highlight recommendations for educational practice. Copyright © 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

The many paradigm shifts in education that came with and after the pandemic emergency have motivated exploring and putting in practice alternatives to enhance the teaching-learning process. Learning by Teaching (LbT) is an educational approach in which individuals strengthen their learning and understanding of a subject by teaching it to others. We present an approach to apply Learning by Teaching in the context of teaching an introductory course in robotics in high schools. Our initial experiences using the proposed approach confirm that LbT offers key advantages, including enhanced engagement and active participation, which contribute to improved comprehension and knowledge transfer.

Background. Global Software Engineering (GSE) poses several challenges during the software design process. While the existing literature provides practices and guidelines to improve architecture knowledge management in GSE-based software organizations, the challenges related to organizing collaboration during the software design process still need attention. Aim. This study aims to identify the collaboration challenges faced by distributed teams during the software design process and provide recommendations. Method. We conducted semi-structured interviews with eight professionals working in different GSE-based organizations. Results. The study revealed three challenges that underscore the negative impact of the distributed setting on team collaboration during the software design process. Conclusion. We provide recommendations and propose future research direction to enhance team collaboration in the software design process for GSE-based organizations.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic prohibited radically the collocation and face-to-face interactions of participants in coding bootcamps and similar experiences, which are key characteristics that help participants to advance technical work. Several specific issues are faced and need to be solved when running online coding camps, which can achieve the same level of positive outcomes for participants. One of such issues is how to keep the same level of fun that participants obtained through physical activities and interactions in the face-to-face settings. In this paper, we report on our experience and insights gained from designing and running a fully remote coding camp that exposes high school students to Agile-based Software Engineering practices to enhance their ability to develop high-quality software. To design the online coding camp, we adapted the face-to-face version of the coding camp to keep the same "level of fun", i.e., adaptations aimed at increasing communication, engaging participants, and introducing fun items to reduce fatigue due to prolonged computer use, while preserving the technical curriculum that enables students to attain the learning goals originally planned. The comparison with the results of the face-to-face coding camp shows that we succeeded in keeping the fun alive in the online edition, and the participants of online camp were able to produce the results at the same level of quality in terms of product and process as in the face-to-face edition. From our experience, we synthesize lessons learned, and we sketch some guidelines for educators.

The world of work-from-home (WFH) and work-from-anywhere (abbreviated WFX or WFA) grew more than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many companies are now planning on permanently allowing WFX, with subsequent demand for specific skills. It is crucial to foster these skills in high schools, as students may enter the job market without attending University. Up-to-date analysis of the current situation is missing to align supply and demand by enabling educators to set goals and strategies to train students so that they will be able to mesh into a WFX setting. To address this issue, we collected complementary data using a case study (23 students), a questionnaire (616 students), and interviews with professionals and practitioners of the software development sector. Results suggest that information management, communication skills, autonomy, and resourcefulness are key competencies that enable professionals to succeed in a WFX environment. However, students feel less prepared in terms of communication skills;moreover, they lack time management and autonomy skills. Based on our results, we highlight recommendations for educational practice that educators can use in curriculum building to fill the gaps that emerged in this study to assure the effective development of the skillset demanded by current and future WFX conditions.

University and college level course satisfaction is usually appraised through feedback surveys. Course satisfaction items and comments commonly orbit around course content and quality of teaching or teaching staff abilities. With the COVID-19 outbreak, teaching strategies and course delivery tools were forced to change, bringing up considerations that previously were not necessarily regarded as key elements for course evaluation. After almost two years of fully remote courses, the declining of the pandemic allowed several institutions to return to in-person activities, bringing back the traditional in-person course format. With the closure of the first courses carried out again in person, it is possible to review course satisfaction surveys in a post-pandemic environment, and gain insight about the trends, changes, and evolution brought by these difficult times. In this experience report, we discuss the results of the course satisfaction survey of an undergraduate Software Engineering course through a time span of three years that includes pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic conditions. Results show that even though by the beginning of the pandemic the course satisfaction level were kept high, as the pandemic aged there was a mild declining trend on course satisfaction and general student engagement. These indicators came back to their traditional levels as the institution brought back in-person courses. The goal of this experience report is to call attention to the production of research works that assist on understanding what are the elements that were relevant for course satisfaction before and during the pandemic, how these prevailed as after the outbreak, and what indicators returned to their original, pre-pandemic standards.

In this article, we describe our experience designing and teaching a curriculum on mobile software development that has benefitted from the no-code philosophy leveraging the power of block-based programming tools. We review a journey of 10 years using block-based programming platforms to lay foundations on software development skills, and empower the creative potential of high school students. Our objective is to provide a review of the evolution, capabilities and technical coverage of the block-based software platforms, and to discuss the impact that we have observed on users and developers who have become acquainted on the use of block-based programming tools through our courses

During peer-led intensive events (such as hackathons and coding camps), students actively assist others to learn and, in turn, benefit from an effective learning environment. In this paper, we present the results of an observational study, having as a working setting a coding camp based on Computational Thinking (CT), to explore how peer-led coding camps can create a seed effect in young students. In particular, we analyze how a practical approach to convey CT skills motivates and effectively prepares student tutors. Moreover, we compare the previous and next edition of the camp to identify the specific contribution of the tutors. We observed that students benefit in particular from CT perspectives and develop the necessary motivation to eventually serve as tutors, creating a multiplier effect that benefits a larger number of students of future cohorts. Moreover, our results show that student tutors contributed positively to the facilitation of the subsequent edition of the coding camp.

Product-centric techniques to analyze mobile applications leverage traditional source code analysis, size, market success, complexity, and others. Many of these techniques converge in the strategy of evaluating metrics taken from the source code that delivers the functionality of the software product. However, when following the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture, mobile applications are typically constructed by a compound of at least two programming languages, one to deliver the functionality and the other to describe the visual aspects. The latter is commonly left out from source code analysis, even though critical parts of the application are present in the graphic User Interface (UI). In this paper, we identify an opportunity to strengthen the product-centric mobile app analysis by incorporating UI metrics. This approach aims to enhance the expressiveness of source code metrics and deliver a more comprehensive analysis of the complexity, maintainability, and effort estimation of a mobile app. To introduce the concept, we present a case study realized using a block-based programming language to create mobile apps, in which we describe and calculate functional and UI metrics, discover commonalities and differences, discuss traits, and open tracks for further research.

Computer programming skills have been growing as a professional competence also to unqualified end-users who need to develop software in their professional practice. Quality evaluation models of end-user-developed products are still scarce. In this paper, we propose a metric that leverages “When”, a condition typically found in block-based software development frameworks. We evaluated 80 Scratch projects collecting a metric related to the presence of the When condition and investigated common traits and differentiation with other metrics already proposed in the literature. We found that, in an evaluation with respect to the conditionals found in Scratch projects, When delivers a distinct and complementary approach to software complexity in products developed using block-oriented software development tools.

Initiatives to attract interest to software development are very popular, including coding camps for high schools. Camp's effectiveness is evaluated using different approaches: pre-and-post surveys usually analyze participant attitudes/interests in computing or self-efficacy; computing skills and learning are tested using surveys/tests, or by analyzing the final products. However, results on the camp's effectiveness are hardly generalizable due to the limited number of participants and the lack of repetition. Moreover, there is a lack of evaluation and evidence collected time after the end of the camp, to determine how participants capitalized on what they learned. To fill this gap, we organized a follow-up project to understand whether participants put in practice the foundational concepts and practices taught in one of our coding camps and recognized their impact on the characteristics of the delivered software product. Results show the camp's effectiveness in delivering technical foundations on basic aspects of Software Engineering, as well as concepts of product design and teamwork.

Aim/Purpose: This work aims to introduce and evaluate an instructional strategy that aids end-users with developing their software products during intensive project-based events. Background: End-users produce software in the labor market, and one of the challenges for End-User Software Engineering (EUSE) is the need to create functional software products without a formal education in software development. Methodology: In this work, we present an instructional strategy to expose end-users to Agile-based Software Engineering (SE) practices and enhance their ability to developing high-quality software. Moreover, we introduce a SE approach for the collection of metrics to assess the effectiveness of the instructional strategy. We conducted two case studies to validate the effectiveness of our strategy; the comprehensive analysis of the outcome products evaluates the strategy and demonstrates how to interpret the collected metrics. Contribution: This work contributes to the research and practitioner body of knowledge by leveraging SE centric concepts to design an instructional strategy to lay the foundations of SE competencies in inexperienced developers. This work presents an instructional strategy to develop SE competencies through an intensive and time-bound structure that may be replicated. Moreover, the present work introduces a framework to evaluate these competencies from a product-centric approach, specialized for non-professional individuals. Finally, the framework contributes to understanding how to assess software quality when the software product is written in non-conventional, introductory programming languages. Findings: The results show the effectiveness of our instructional strategy: teams were successful in constructing a working software product. However, participants did not display a good command of source code order and structure. Recommendations for Practitioners: Our instructional strategy provides practitioners with a framework to lay foundations in SE competencies during intensive project-based events. Based on the results of our case studies, we provide a set of recommendations for educational practice. Recommendation for Researchers: We propose an assessment framework to analyze the effectiveness of the instructional strategy from a SE perspective. This analysis provides an overall picture of the participants’ performance; other researchers could use our framework to evaluate the effectiveness of their activities, which would contribute to increasing the possibility of comparing the effectiveness of different instructional strategies. Impact on Society: Given the number of end-user developers who create software products without a formal SE training, several professional and educational contexts can benefit from our proposed instructional strategy and assessment framework. Future Research: Further research can focus on improving the assessment framework by including both process and product metrics to shed light on the effectiveness of the instructional strategies.