LTEC Blog

Microphone Check: One, Two, What is This?

December 01, 2016

Microphone Check: One, Two, What is This?¹ We are 16+ blog posts into a social experiment – blogging as a way to partially satisfy our dissemination mandate from NSF. At the time, it seemed a somewhat novel approach for a group so focused on mathematics and computer science education research. While it is true that a blog cannot match the traditional vehicles for presenting results: papers, presentations, etc., we thought it might be a great way to memorialize many of the meaningful team conversations that take place frequently over the life of a project. Research findings can be presented in a paper, but our experience over the years has taught us that there are many other “aha” moments – large and small insights that shift our ways of thinking. These moments occur as we work together, particularly when the group is interdisciplinary. So then, we think of the LTEC blog as a way to create artifacts – lingering records of these conversations – for ourselves and for others. It may be vain, or at least self-indulgent, to think that others may benefit from our own evolution record, but we have all had that moment, listening to a colleague’s tale of conversations past, when we feel a ripple of excitement, an echo of a life-changing “aha” moment. Oh to have been a fly on the wall when that went down! The questions we would ask! The kudos we would give! …

Shared language, differing meanings. When do the differences matter?

November 11, 2016

When looking at the subject-specific terminology used in mathematics and computer science, the two disciplines appear to be fast friends. Computer scientists develop algorithms; so do mathematicians. Mathematicians abstract away details of a problem situation and focus on underlying structures; so do computer scientists. Computer scientists use variables to represent changing quantities; so do mathematicians. It’s natural to assume compatibility between processes and areas of focus that are described using the same words. But can this assumed compatibility hold up to careful scrutiny?

Welcome to the Playground

November 04, 2016

In September, Apple unveiled a new programming environment alongside iOS10 that stakes its claim for mind and marketshare in the #csforall movement. Swift Playgrounds is a new free iPad application that allows students different opportunities to explore and learn coding. With this entry, Apple joins other high profile technology companies, such as Google and Microsoft who are making investments in the future of computer science education. With these tools Apple claims that they “have reinvented how to learn to code”. While the marketing department may played a role in this bold assertion, there is a component of this initiative that has the potential to live up to this claim: the Swift programming language.

Figure 1: An Apple ][ computer in 1982.

Student conversations during computing: How are students collaborating while computing?

October 27, 2016

Within the LTEC project, we are developing learning trajectories for integrated mathematics and computing. In addition to examining the literature and existing curricula for both implicit and explicit goals and learning progressions, we also examine implementation of integrated mathematics and computing in existing elementary classrooms. As part of this work, we conduct classroom observations and interviews with teachers, and make video screen recordings of students as they complete computing tasks. We use these multiple data sources in order to gain a more robust understanding of how these integrated lessons are developed and taught by the teachers as well as how students are engaging in the process of computing.