CSU Computer Science Education Website
This page is a repository for information related to Computer Science Education
at the Department of Computer Science of Colorado State University.
COLCSE Conference
This year we hosted the second annual Colorado Computer Science Educators (COLCSE) conference.
Information about the event is posted below, and Regis has generously offered to host the event
next year. All email addresses have been updated, please let me know if your contact information
is incorrect, or if you would like to be removed from the mailing list. The program, participant
list, and notes for the last two years is shown below:
SIGCSE Organization
The ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE)
is the premier organization for educational concerns in our field. The next conference is March 8-11, 2017
in Seattle. The website is somewhat preliminary, but does include
a call for papers, which are usually due around the end of August. Some relevant papers are posted below:
2016 Papers
- Testing Strategies for the Automated Grading of Student Programs, Chris Wilcox, Colorado State University,
paper is here, slides are here.
2015 Papers
- The Role of Automation in Undergraduate Computer Science Education, Chris Wilcox, Colorado State University,
paper is here, slides are here.
- Personalized Attention @ ScaleDirk Grunwald, Elizabeth Boese, Rhonda Hoenigman, Andy Sayler and Judith Stafford, University of Colorado,
paper is here.
- Using Undergraduates as Teaching Assistants at a State University, Stuart Reges, University of Arizona,
paper is here.
Trip Reports
- Trip Report for SIGCSE 13 (Denver) is here.
- Trip Report for SIGCSE 14 (Atlanta) is here.
- Trip Report for SIGCSE 15 (Kansas City) is here.
- Trip Report for SIGCSE 16 (Memphis) is here.
Automated Grading
Our department makes extensive use of automated grading tools to evaluate student programs. These
tools were primarily developed by Fritz Sieker with an additional web interface by Chris Wilcox.
Unfortunately our tools are somewhat specialized and not ready for release to other institutions,
but we may change this situation in the future. I will post details on the various automated grading
tools that are available.
Other Links
Besides automated grading, we use a number of commercial tools to support undergraduate education.
One such tool is Piazza, a very easy to use bulletin board
that can be applied to any classroom. Liz Boese has contributed a couple of videos, including her
TED talk here,
and her video on Grace Hopper here.
Summer Programming Camp
The link for the 2016 Summer Programming Camp for Middle School Girls,
held from June 6-10 at Colorado State University is
here.
Outreach Activities
The Department of Computer Science of Colorado State University is interested in expanding our
outreach activities, particularly to middle and high school level students. We were very excited
to get a report on the Computer Science courses that are offered (or about to be offered) in the
Poudre School District. We have identified several ways in which we could help out, as follows:
- By arranging undergraduate and graduate student helpers to visit your computer science classes.
- By helping to setup and monitor Piazza boards for your classes so that we can answer technical questions.
- By signing up to teach a programming course for middle school students during the summer STEM camp next year.
- By working with you on curriculum and providing direct help during one of your classes.
We will be contacting the high school teachers in the Poudre School District shortly to see how
we can help out. In addition, we expect to start looking for funding in the next year to finance
some or all of these activities. Please contact Chris Wilcox at wilcox@cs.colostate.edu for more
information.