Research

Research Groups > Computer Science Education

	Computer Science Education
	Main Research Question What’s the best way to teach students introductory computer science and the principles of software design?
	Current Research >

Viera K. Proulx

Richard Rasala

Team Achievements

Developed Java Power Tools, a set of software tools that enable college freshmen to rapidly develop programs with robust user input-output, easy-to-build graphical user interfaces, and flexible graphics that combines shapes, images, and text. With Matthias Felleisen, piloted a curriculum for class-based design in object-oriented programming languages that teaches students to think about programs and the design process in a systematic way following the "design recipe" method. Established summer workshops for high school and college instructors based on the forthcoming book, How to Design Classes, modeled after the TeachScheme! workshops developed by Felleisen.

Current Research

Curriculum development: Developing a curriculum that applies the design recipe for programming in Scheme to object-oriented language and class-based programs. Experimenting with the use of Java Power Tools in an honors freshman seminar to teach students how to write programs they normally wouldn’t be able to tackle their first year.

New textbook: Coauthoring a text that covers class-based design and programming in an object-oriented language.