research-article

A Collaborative Course for Learning How to Teach Summer Java Coding Camps

Authors:

Kulsoom Mansoor,

Riley GaggeroAuthors Info & Claims

SIGCSE '18: Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

Pages 515 - 520

https://doi.org/10.1145/3159450.3159610

Published: 21 February 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Summer coding or programming camps are popular. With sufficient organization, offering these camps at higher education institutions can facilitate outreach objectives including engaging underrepresented groups. However, the challenges involved in organizing and offering a camp are many, including: recruitment of instructors and campers, camp management, finances, and curriculum development. We addressed these challenges by engaging a non-profit summer camp provider, Pacific Science Center (PSC), to handle camp logistics; and offered a new course for students with backgrounds in computer science (CS) or education (ED) to learn to teach Java programming and develop a curriculum appropriate for middle school aged campers. The university students then worked as paid summer camp instructors. Three professors, one each from CS, ED, and the Office of Research, co-planned and co-facilitated the course. Reflecting a hands-on and collaborative learning philosophy of PSC camps, the course grouped students into multidisciplinary teams and challenged the teams to learn by collaboratively developing and practice teaching the content. By the end of the course, we had classroom-ready instructors with technical knowledge in both programming and learning theories and a customized curriculum ready for use. This paper details our project, including results from the summer camps. With all developed materials freely available. Interested institutions can either adapt the curriculum or offer a similar course.

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Cited By

Cutts QKallia MAnderson RCrick TDevlin MFarghally MMirolo CRunde RSeppälä OUrquiza-Fuentes JVahrenhold JLaakso MMonga MSimon Sheard J(2023)Arguments for and Approaches to Computing Education in Undergraduate Computer Science ProgrammesProceedings of the 2023 Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/3623762.3633494(160-195)Online publication date: 22-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3623762.3633494
Nche OBoulware RChe SKraemer ESitaraman MZordan V(2020)Basic Code Understanding Challenges for Elementary School Children2020 Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT)10.1109/RESPECT49803.2020.9272421(1-2)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/RESPECT49803.2020.9272421

Index Terms

A Collaborative Course for Learning How to Teach Summer Java Coding Camps
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education

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cover image ACM Conferences

SIGCSE '18: Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

February 2018

1174 pages

ISBN:9781450351034

DOI:10.1145/3159450

General Chairs:
Tiffany Barnes
North Carolina State University, USA
,
Daniel Garcia
University of California, Berkeley, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Elizabeth K. Hawthorne
Union County College, USA
,
Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones
UNC Charlotte, USA

Copyright © 2018 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 21 February 2018

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SIGCSE '18: The 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

February 21 - 24, 2018

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SIGCSE '18 Paper Acceptance Rate 161 of 459 submissions, 35%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,595 of 4,542 submissions, 35%

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Cited By

Cutts QKallia MAnderson RCrick TDevlin MFarghally MMirolo CRunde RSeppälä OUrquiza-Fuentes JVahrenhold JLaakso MMonga MSimon Sheard J(2023)Arguments for and Approaches to Computing Education in Undergraduate Computer Science ProgrammesProceedings of the 2023 Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/3623762.3633494(160-195)Online publication date: 22-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3623762.3633494
Nche OBoulware RChe SKraemer ESitaraman MZordan V(2020)Basic Code Understanding Challenges for Elementary School Children2020 Research on Equity and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT)10.1109/RESPECT49803.2020.9272421(1-2)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/RESPECT49803.2020.9272421

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