© Heikki Topi

PACE Workshop on Computing Education

Research

ACM Education Council Meeting

Portland, Oregon 9/16 – 9/17/2014

Heikki Topi, Bentley University

PACEPartnership for Advancing Computing Education

A cross-society initiative to support communication and collaboration between academic and professional societies that have an active interest in computing education

Launched in 2011 as a major follow-up of 2009 Future of Computing Education Summit

Charter members ACM, AIS, CRA, CSTA, IEEE-CS, and NCWIT

Background August 21-22, 2014 in Washington, D.C.

Funded by the NSF

Many thanks to Jane Prey for the idea, support and encouragement!

Hosted by the National Academies Many thanks to Kitty Didion (National Academy of Engineering)!

Keynote by Grady Booch

Steering Committee: Lecia Barker, PACE Chair Andrew McGettrick, PACE Co-Chair Jason Thatcher, Grant PI Heikki Topi, Workshop Chair

Participants

Disciplines represented Computer Science Information Systems Software Engineering Information Technology Computer Engineering

Informatics Information Science Engineering Statistics

29 participants representing education-focused researchers in a variety of academic fields

Organizations represented: ACM, AIS, CRA, Google, Microsoft, NAE, NCWIT, NSF

© Heikki Topi

Participants Catherine Ashcraft

Lecia Barker

Peter Brusilovsky

Kathleen Burnett

Stephen Cooper

Victor Davis

Kitty Didion

Mike Erlich

Armando Fox

Christina Gardner-McCune

Susanne Hambrusch

Nick Horton

Stephen Ibaraki

Jeffrey P. Landry

Michael C. Loui

Robert McCartney

Andrew McGettrick

Matt Nelson

James Parrish

Jim Pellegrino

Jim Pinkelman

Jane Prey

Mihaela Sabin

Bernd Schenk

Chris Stephenson

Harriet Taylor

Jason Thatcher

Heikki Topi

Joe Valacich

Workshop GoalsDeveloping an improved understanding of the differences

and similarities between the agendas of the various computing subdisciplines.

Moving towards a forward looking and comprehensive joint research agenda for computing education as a whole and not only as a collection of separate subdisciplines

Determining ways in which academic and professional societies with a stake in computing education will be able to best serve the computing education research community.

Through the prior three mechanisms, enhancing the standing of computing education research and galvanizing it into meaningful and effective action.

ModulesI. Understanding the computing education

research landscape: differences and similarities between the subdisciplines of computing

II. Advancing the computing education research agenda and learning from other disciplines

III. Particular action items: What specific actions and activities would enhance the standing of computing education research?

IV. The role of computing societies

Initial ObservationsComputing education subcommunities have a lot of

similaries and share several broad areas of interest (without knowing much about each other) Pedagogy, Assessment, Enrollment

All computing disciplines have also their own individual focus areas in CER For example, pipeline issues in CS; Innovation in IS Again, excellent learning opportunities

Strong focus on articulating the vision and describing the value of CER better

Importance of communicating the specific (positive) impacts of CER to various stakeholder groups

Initial ObservationsImproved communication between CER scholars

across computing disciplines is very important – significant learning opportunities existNatural forums for this are missingCould ICER become one?

What is the role of industry participants in CRE?

Establishing joint MS/PhD programs to ensure that a graduating PhD has sufficient background

Initial ObservationsPossible roles of professional and academic

societiesStrengthening the legitimacy and improving the

visibility of CERSharing results across disciplinary boundaries and

encouraging the development of cross-disciplinary venues

Recognizing high-quality work in CER

Follow-up InitiativeIdentifying the current Grand Challenges of

computing educationProviding big picture goals for computing education

researchHelp setting and clarifying research agendaDeveloping a shared understanding between the

computing disciplines on CER Impact on status and standing of CER

Addressing the question across the subdisciplines of computing educationSubmissions to SIGCSE 2015 and AIS SIG-ED 2014