In late August, the CRA Bulletin published an article arguing, "Why CS Departments Should Embrace Computing Education Research." The piece followed a July CRA Conference at Snowbird, which addresses issues such as how a CS department may benefit from hiring tenure-track faculty in computer education research, and how this type of research can enhance other research in a department. The panelists included CSE Prof. Scott Klemmer as well as faculty from Georgia Tech, University of Washington, University of Colorado-Boulder, University of Chicago, and Harvey Mudd College.
What came out of the session was a growing sense that there are substantial new funding opportunities, including NSF CAREER Awards, NSF Graduate Research Fellowships, and growing support from industry. The panel also agreed that computer science education researchers "often forge productive collaborations with colleagues in machine learning, programming languages, natural language processing, and human-computer interaction as well as with researchers in other departments such as education, cognitive science, and psychology."
The CRA Bulletin article also points to additional resources in the area, and those resources included a web page set up by CSE's Klemmer with collaborators at Carnegie Mellon. The site focuses on peer learning research, which may hold the key to rapid advances in the use of massive online classrooms -- if researchers can figure out how take peer learning out of the classroom and into the cloud. Klemmer pulled together links to innovations in "pedagogical styles and software systems" that he and colleagues have created over the past three years," and posted them on the web page, "Supporting Peer Interactions Online and Onland".
Visit Scott Klemmer's peer-learning research web page.
Read the Aug. 26 CRA Bulletin article.