Stephanie Ludi’s research while affiliated with University of North Texas and other places

Teachers face several challenges when presenting the fundamental concepts of programming in the classroom. Several tools are introduced to give a visual dimension to support the learning process. These tools rely on code blocks, easily manipulated in a plug and play fashion, to build a program. These block-based tools intend to familiarize students with programming logic, before diving into text-based programming languages such as Java, Python, etc. However; when transitioning from block-based to text-based programming, students often encounter a gap in their learning. The student may not be able to apply block-based foundations in a text-based environment. To bridge the gap between both environments, we developed a hybrid-based learning approach. We found that on average a hybrid-based approach increases the students understanding of programming foundations, memorization, and ease of transition by more than 30% when compared to a block-based to text-based learning approach. Finally, we provide the community with an open source, hybrid-based learning tool that can be used by students when learning programming concepts or for future studies.

Teachers face several challenges when presenting the fundamental concepts of programming in the classroom. Several tools are introduced to give a visual dimension to support the learning process. These tools rely on code blocks, easily manipulated in a plug and play fashion, to build a program. These block-based tools intend to familiarize students with programming logic, before diving into text-based programming languages such as Java, Python, etc. However; when transitioning from block-based to text-based programming, students often encounter a gap in their learning. The student may not be able to apply block-based foundations in a text-based environment. To bridge the gap between both environments, we developed a hybrid-based learning approach. We found that on average a hybrid-based approach increases the students understanding of programming foundations, memorization, and ease of transition by more than 30% when compared to a block-based to text-based learning approach. Finally, we provide the community with an open source, hybrid-based learning tool that can be used by students when learning programming concepts or for future studies.

Case studies are one of the best active learning approaches for teaching software engineering in general and requirements engineering in particular. They offer an effective approach to understanding a system or a phenomenon that are too large or too difficult to represent in a lab setting. As a tangible manipulative, LEGO works well to support designing hands-on case studies that mix studying software engineering concepts with the elements of team building and playful creativity. In our project, we study the role that LEGO has in engaging students in software engineering through a set of activities that leverage the case study and play aspects. This paper presents our design approach for requirements engineering activities, as well as current results from classroom testing with a focus on student engagement with the subject matter.

Making technology and computer science learning experiences accessible to students with disabilities is an important step in preparing them to enter the workforce of the future--one in which many jobs will require skills to solve problems with technology. This paper presents the tool and curricular enhancements developed to make the Exploring Computer Science Robotics unit accessible to students with visual impairments (VI). It describes the evolution of enhancements, based on formative evaluation studies, to increase support as VI students engaged in building and programming LEGO Mindstorms robots. Results describe the ways in which enhancements were iteratively designed in response to student engagement and confidence, as well as their emerging understanding of top-down and bottom-up processes in robotics design and programming.

An increasing importance of accessibility awareness and knowledge emanates from a moral imperative and as an employment differentiator. It is important that educational programs have a demonstrated ability to teach these skills. In this paper, we focus on the role that educational courses can play in increasing accessibility awareness for undergraduate students. We review literature indicating that a number of accessibility teaching interventions have been reported; yet the evaluation of their effectiveness has not been conducted in a consistent manner. We report on our 3-semester evaluation of undergraduate students' accessibility awareness and knowledge following a week of accessibility lectures as part of courses on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), where a subset of students also interact with stakeholders with disabilities during the conduct of the course projects. Gains in awareness and knowledge occur when accessibility lectures were part of the course. These gains are compared across the teams who interacted with a person with a disability and teams with no such interaction. In addition, we provide the test battery developed to measure these skills, to enable other researchers to conduct evaluations of the effectiveness of interventions for teaching inclusive thinking in undergraduate computing at their own institutions.

LEGO is a construction toy familiar to many students. Creating software, regardless of scale, is often similar to building with tangible objects, such as houses or bridges--an analogy that is often used in the classroom. In this workshop, we will show how to use LEGO bricks as a surrogate representing the lines of code, software objects, or other artifacts in the process of constructing software systems. LEGO-based analogies and case studies enacted as hands-on exercises for student teams help develop a better understanding of the underlying concepts, while keeping students deeply engaged in the course material. This workshop is intended for faculty teaching undergraduate and graduate courses focusing on software development, software engineering, and related concepts. This workshop will also benefit other educators looking for ways to supplement their courses with engaging and playful hands-on activities aimed to strengthen the teamwork, oral communication, problem solving, and design skills of students. We will practice several hands-on LEGO-based activities during the workshop. Specific topics of these activities will include change management and object-oriented interfaces, as well as activities specific to the phases of software development. Workshop participants will learn about other LEGO-based activities that focus on a broad range of topics including requirements engineering, architectural design, and software dependability. A laptop is not required for this workshop. This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation Awards 1611905, 1709244 and a 2015 ACM SIGCSE Special Project grant. For more information visit http://www.cs.ccsu.edu/~stan/sigcse2018/

With the increasing importance of accessibility awareness and knowledge as both a moral imperative and an employment differentiator, it is incumbent on educational programs to have demonstrated ability to teach these skills. We report on our year-long evaluation of university students' accessibility awareness and knowledge following a week of accessibility lectures as part of courses on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). We report gains in awareness and knowledge when accessibility lectures were part of the course. We describe the test battery developed to measure these skills, and describe our ongoing longitudinal research to measure the effectiveness of several interventions for teaching inclusive thinking in undergraduate computing courses.

Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) play an important role in the workflow of many software developers, e.g. providing syntactic highlighting or other navigation aids to support the creation of lengthy codebases. Unfortunately, such complex visual information is difficult to convey with current screen-reader technologies, thereby creating barriers for programmers who are blind, who are nevertheless using IDEs. To better understand their usage strategies and challenges, we conducted an exploratory study to investigate the issue of code navigation by developers who are blind. We observed 28 blind programmers using their preferred coding tool while they performed various programming activities, in particular while they navigated through complex codebases. Participants encountered many navigation difficulties when using their preferred coding software with assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers). During interviews, participants reported dissatisfaction with the accessibility of most IDEs due to the heavy use of visual abstractions. To compensate, participants used multiple input methods and workarounds to navigate through code comfortably and reduce complexity, but these approaches often reduced their speed and introduced mistakes, thereby reducing their efficiency as programmers. Our findings suggest an opportunity for researchers and the software industry to improve the accessibility and usability of code navigation for blind developers in IDEs.