Opening the door of the Computer Science classroom: the Disciplinary Commons

Opening the door of the Computer Science classroom: the Disciplinary Commons Josh Tenenberg, Sally Fincher SIGCSE Symposium, Covington, KY March 10, 2007

There’s something scary and strange happening It was a complete unknown, and that was quite scary, so … it was a bit of a push from [the] deputy head of the department … I did get a bit of a kick in the backside to go and do this. [Frank]

And so it starts But during my sort of research activity, I would perhaps travel if not to London, to somewhere else at least once a month. Talking to people in the field, networking. And I’m getting off the plane, and all of a sudden, I sort of stopped and thought, “Wait a minute. I’m here for teaching. I haven’t done this before.” [Daniel]

To document and share knowledge about student learning on courses in Computer Science in two- and four-year institutions within a single geographic region. • To improve the quality of teaching in Computer Science (CS) by establishing practices for the scholarship of teaching by making it public, peer-reviewed, and amenable for future use and development by other CS educators. • To document and share knowledge about teaching and student learning on introductory programming courses in the UK. • To establish practices for the scholarship of teaching by making it public, peer-reviewed, and amenable for future use and development by other educators: creating a teaching-appropriate document of practice equivalent to the research-appropriate journal paper.

The importance of discipline It's hard to do. You have to work at it. And to do it on a continued basis, like once a month, was great. Whereas otherwise it might be once or twice a year at a conference. [Albert]

So what did you actually DO? I think the need to produce a portfolio meant that I was forced to look at different areas of how I teach, the context and the content and assessment and all these kind of things. So that forced me through a process of reflection, what do I do, why do I do it, is there a need for change in these areas. So that whole process I found really helpful. [Henry]

What is the genre?

What do they have in common? • The purposeful selection of artefacts to achieve an end • Selection is not random: you choose the contents to reflect the parts that are most important to you (and/or your theme) • What end? This requires consideration of audience and purpose • Course portfolios comprise a set of documents that "focuses on the unfolding of a single course, from conception to results" (Hutchins, 1998, p.13). • The purpose of the course portfolio "is in revealing how teaching practice and student performance are connected with each other" (Bernstein, 1998, p77).

Disciplinary importance Reflective practice New degrees of freedom People I trust Externality Legitimation of scholarship Validation of my own practice (“confidence”) Reference group You can’t get this any other way Why is this different from any workshop, or series of workshops?

Disciplinary importance Reflective practice New degrees of freedom People I trust Externality Legitimation of scholarship Validation of my own practice (“confidence”) Reference group You can’t get this any other way … there's a teaching and learning group that has meetings roughly every other week, and I've attended a few. Several of my colleagues … have done presentations, but many of the topics don't seem immediately relevant to CS. That was the beauty of the Commons group -- all CS, all the time! [Samuel] Why is this different from any workshop, or series of workshops?

Disciplinary importance Reflective practice New degrees of freedom People I trust Externality Legitimation of scholarship Validation of my own practice (“confidence”) Reference group You can’t get this any other way In general, I now reflect more on the way I teach the course. This means that also the way of discussing it with colleagues has changed. [Daisy] Why is this different from any workshop, or series of workshops?

it's one of those things where it's a good idea because it's so blooming obvious now. Daniel … started talking about the way his labs were laid out and started talking about his physical environment, the space in which … his students learned. … But [he] talks about … tearing walls out and… then he had … created a new environment where he could talk a bit, they could do stuff, they could go back to the board to discuss it and do some more. … so now I'm trying to break out of that and encourage other things. [Frank] Disciplinary importance Reflective practice New degrees of freedom People I trust Externality Legitimation of scholarship Validation of my own practice (“confidence”) Reference group You can’t get this any other way Why is this different from any workshop, or series of workshops?

I mean there's this shared knowledge now that we don't have to repeat, everybody knows the outlines of everybody else's situation and their experiences and, you know, I would I would trust information from any of these people [Samuel] Disciplinary importance Reflective practice New degrees of freedom People I trust Externality Legitimation of scholarship Validation of my own practice (“confidence”) Reference group You can’t get this any other way Why is this different from any workshop, or series of workshops?

My participation in the Commons changed how I think about almost every aspect of teaching. I gained confidence in some of my approaches, I learned techniques for being introspective, I've become a peer in a wider circle of faculty, I have discovered new avenues for improving my teaching, and I have a new vehicle for sharing my own thoughts about teaching. [Albert] Disciplinary importance Reflective practice New degrees of freedom People I trust Externality Legitimation of scholarship Validation of my own practice (“confidence”) Reference group You can’t get this any other way Why is this different from any workshop, or series of workshops? I see teaching much more as a community craft. I've always thought that, but never had worked like this with other kindred spirits. I appreciate the diversity of great teachers. I have gained confidence, and subsequently, I feel bolder to share what I've learned with others. I'm not a great teacher yet, but I'm starting to see what my version of being such a teacher will look like, in large part a result of this project. [Minnie]

A last thing to think about … Why isn't the Commons more common? It's similar to meeting the same people at conferences, but at conferences people are interested in themselves, their presentations. Here we're interested in each other. [Herbert]

References http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/~saf/dc http://depts.washington.edu/comgrnd/ • Daniel Bernstein, Putting the focus on student learning, in The Course Portfolio, Pat Hutchings (ed.), American Association for Higher Education, 1998. • Pat Hutchings (ed.), The Course Portfolio: How Faculty Can Examine Their Teaching to Advance Practice and Improve Student Learning, American Association for Higher Education, 1998

Acknowledgements Acknowledgements (i) • The US Disciplinary Commons was made possible by funding from the Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges, the University of Washington, Tacoma. • The itp Disciplinary Commons was made possible through the award of a National Teaching Fellowship 2005 to Sally Fincher. • This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Acknowledgements (ii) • Funding for project evaluation was provided by a grant from the SIGCSE Special Projects fund. • The authors also acknowledge the Helen Whiteley Center of the University of Washington for providing a quiet and conducive space for undertaking the project evaluation.

Opening the door of the Computer Science classroom: the Disciplinary Commons