CSC News
Heckman Uses Google Award to Keep Students Engaged
Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Heckman, teaching assistant professor in the NC State Computer Science Department, on receiving a Google CS Engagement Small Award valued at $5,000. The award will be used towards the development and integration of instructional materials for increasing student engagement and retention in introductory computer science classes. The title of Heckman’s project is “Incorporation of Software Engineering Best Practices in CSC216.”Abstract: Students are first exposed to the full software engineering lifecycle in CSC216, a second semester programming course taught in Java. To support engagement and retention of our students, we hypothesize that teaching best software engineering practices and modeling successful techniques for solving computer science and software engineering problems in the classroom will support student success on independent programming projects for CSC216 and future courses. The software engineering best practices of interest are: test-driven development, coverage, static analysis, inspections, version control, and continuous integration. This project includes the development, integration, and refinement of instructional materials for engaging students in software engineering best practices during in-class laboratory assignments. We will assess the effectiveness of the instructional materials and delivery by measuring student learning, engagement, efficacy, and retention.
For more information on the Google CS Engagement Small Award Program, click here.
For more information on Dr. Heckman, click here.
~coates~
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