Modeling Programming Competency


Book Description

This book covers a qualitative study on the programming competencies of novice learners in higher education. To be precise, the book investigates the expected programming competencies within basic programming education at universities and the extent to which the Computer Science curricula fail to provide transparent, observable learning outcomes and assessable competencies. The study analyzes empirical data on 35 exemplary universities' curricula and interviews with experts in the field. The book covers research desiderata, research design and methodology, an in-depth data analysis, and a presentation and discussion of results in the context of programming education. Addressing programming competency in such great detail is essential due to the increasing relevance of computing in today’s society and the need for competent programmers who will help shape our future. Although programming is a core tier of computing and many related disciplines, learning how to program can be challenging in higher education, and many students fail in introductory programming. The book aims to understand what programming means, what programming competency encompasses, and what teachers expect of novice learners. In addition, it illustrates the cognitive complexity of programming as an advanced competency, including knowledge, skills, and dispositions in context. So, the purpose is to communicate the breadth and depth of programming competency to educators and learners of programming, including institutions, curriculum designers, and accreditation bodies. Moreover, the book’s goal is to represent how a qualitative research methodology can be applied in the context of computing education research, as the qualitative research paradigm is still an exception in computing education research. The book provides new insights into programming competency. It outlines the components of programming competencies in terms of knowledge, skills, and dispositions and their cognitive complexity according to the CC2020 computing curricula and the Anderson-Krathwohl taxonomy of the cognitive domain. These insights are essential as programming constitutes one of the most relevant competencies in all computing study programs. In addition, being able to program describes the capability of solving problems, which is also a core competency in today’s increasingly digitalized society. In particular, the book reveals the great relevance of dispositions and other competency components in programming education, which curricula currently fail to recognize and specify. In addition, the book outlines the resulting implications for higher education institutions, educators, and student expectations. Yet another result of interest to graduate students is the multi-method study design that allows for the triangulation of data and results.




HCI International 2020 - Posters


Book Description

The three-volume set CCIS 1224, CCIS 1225, and CCIS 1226 contains the extended abstracts of the posters presented during the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2020, which took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, in July 2020.* HCII 2020 received a total of 6326 submissions, of which 1439 papers and 238 posters were accepted for publication in the pre-conference proceedings after a careful reviewing process. The 238 papers presented in these three volumes are organized in topical sections as follows: Part I: design and evaluation methods and tools; user characteristics, requirements and preferences; multimodal and natural interaction; recognizing human psychological states; user experience studies; human perception and cognition. -AI in HCI. Part II: virtual, augmented and mixed reality; virtual humans and motion modelling and tracking; learning technology. Part III: universal access, accessibility and design for the elderly; smartphones, social media and human behavior; interacting with cultural heritage; human-vehicle interaction; transport, safety and crisis management; security, privacy and trust; product and service design. *The conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapter "“Developing an Interactive Tabletop Mediated Activity to Induce Collaboration by Implementing Design Considerations Based on Cooperative Learning Principles” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.




Introduction to Modeling and Simulation with MATLAB® and Python


Book Description

Introduction to Modeling and Simulation with MATLAB and Python is intended for students and professionals in science, social science, and engineering that wish to learn the principles of computer modeling, as well as basic programming skills. The book content focuses on meeting a set of basic modeling and simulation competencies that were developed as part of several National Science Foundation grants. Even though computer science students are much more expert programmers, they are not often given the opportunity to see how those skills are being applied to solve complex science and engineering problems and may also not be aware of the libraries used by scientists to create those models. The book interleaves chapters on modeling concepts and related exercises with programming concepts and exercises. The authors start with an introduction to modeling and its importance to current practices in the sciences and engineering. They introduce each of the programming environments and the syntax used to represent variables and compute mathematical equations and functions. As students gain more programming expertise, the authors return to modeling concepts, providing starting code for a variety of exercises where students add additional code to solve the problem and provide an analysis of the outcomes. In this way, the book builds both modeling and programming expertise with a "just-in-time" approach so that by the end of the book, students can take on relatively simple modeling example on their own. Each chapter is supplemented with references to additional reading, tutorials, and exercises that guide students to additional help and allows them to practice both their programming and analytical modeling skills. In addition, each of the programming related chapters is divided into two parts – one for MATLAB and one for Python. In these chapters, the authors also refer to additional online tutorials that students can use if they are having difficulty with any of the topics. The book culminates with a set of final project exercise suggestions that incorporate both the modeling and programming skills provided in the rest of the volume. Those projects could be undertaken by individuals or small groups of students. The companion website at http://www.intromodeling.com provides updates to instructions when there are substantial changes in software versions, as well as electronic copies of exercises and the related code. The website also offers a space where people can suggest additional projects they are willing to share as well as comments on the existing projects and exercises throughout the book. Solutions and lecture notes will also be available for qualifying instructors.




Administrative Leadership in Open and Distance Learning Programs


Book Description

The face of education is constantly being transformed due to rapid changes in technology. It is imperative that leadership trends and techniques be evaluated in the educational field, particularly in reference to alternative learning programs. Administrative Leadership in Open and Distance Learning Programs is a pivotal scholarly resource that discusses emerging issues surrounding the administration of non-traditional education practices. Highlighting relevant topics that include policy development, quality assurance, accreditation, and assessment systems, this publication is an ideal reference source for educators, academicians, graduate students, and researchers that are interested in the progression of open and distance education.







Models in Software Engineering


Book Description

This book constitutes a collection of the best papers selected from 9 workshops and 2 symposia held in conjunction with MODELS 2009, the 12 International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems, in Denver, CO, USA, in October 2009. The first two sections contain selected papers from the Doctoral Symposium and the Educational Symposium, respectively. The other contributions are organized according to the workshops at which they were presented: 2nd International Workshop on Model Based Architecting and Construction of Embedded Systems (ACES-MB'09); 14th International Workshop on Aspect-Oriented Modeling (AOM); [email protected] ([email protected]); Model-driven Engineering, Verification, and Validation: Integrating Verification and Validation in MDE (MoDeVVa09); Models and Evolution (MoDSE-MCCM); Third International Workshop on Multi-Paradigm Modeling (MPM09); The Pragmatics of OCL and Other Textual Specification Languages (OCL); 2nd International Workshop on Non-Functional System Properties in Domain Specific Modeling Languages (NFPinDSML); and 2nd Workshop on Transformation and Weaving OWL Ontologies and MDE/MDA (TWOMDE2009). Each section includes a summary of the workshop.




Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Modeling and Simulation, plus Econophysics Colloquium 2014


Book Description

The proceedings of the international conference “SMSEC2014”, a joint conference of the first “Social Modeling and Simulations” and the 10th “Econophysics Colloquium”, held in Kobe in November 2014 with 174 participants, are gathered herein. Cutting edge scientific researches on various social phenomena are reviewed. New methods for analysis of big data such as financial markets, automobile traffics, epidemic spreading, world-trades and social media communications are provided to clarify complex interaction and distributions underlying in these social phenomena. Robustness and fragility of social systems are discussed based on agent models and complex network models. Techniques about high performance computers are introduced for simulation of complicated social phenomena. Readers will feel the researchers minds that deep and quantitative understanding will make it possible to realize comprehensive simulations of our whole society in the near future, which will contribute to wide fields of industry also to scientific policy decision.




Meta-Programming and Model-Driven Meta-Program Development


Book Description

Meta-Programming and Model-Driven Meta-Program Development: Principles, Processes and Techniques presents an overall analysis of meta-programming, focusing on insights of meta-programming techniques, heterogeneous meta-program development processes in the context of model-driven, feature-based and transformative approaches. The fundamental concepts of meta-programming are still not thoroughly understood, in this well organized book divided into three parts the authors help to address this. Chapters include: Taxonomy of fundamental concepts of meta-programming; Concept of structural heterogeneous meta-programming based on the original meta-language; Model-driven concept and feature-based modeling to the development process of meta-programs; Equivalent meta-program transformations and metrics to evaluate complexity of feature-based models and meta-programs; Variety of academic research case studies within different application domains to experimentally verify the soundness of the investigated approaches. Both authors are professors at Kaunas University of Technology with 15 years research and teaching experience in the field. Meta-Programming and Model-Driven Meta-Program Development: Principles, Processes and Techniques is aimed at post-graduates in computer science and software engineering and researchers and program system developers wishing to extend their knowledge in this rapidly evolving sector of science and technology.




Building STEM Skills Through Environmental Education


Book Description

Environmental studies provide an ideal opportunity for children of any age to build critical and creative thinking skills while also building skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Exploring issues related to sustainability and environmental concerns permits learners to identify problems, develop research questions, gather and analyze data, develop possible solutions, and disseminate this information to others. Despite the advantages of green education and its ability to improve student achievement, there is a gap in understanding the interplay between curriculum and instruction and how this affects teaching and learning. Building STEM Skills Through Environmental Education is an essential publication that addresses gaps in the understanding of green education and offers educators meaningful and comprehensive examples of environmental and sustainability education in the Pre-K through secondary grade levels. The book offers a unique combination of foundational understanding of green education and chapters that illustrate the principles and impact of green education across grade levels, content areas, assessment systems, instructional strategies, technology, and other related topics. It is ideally designed for educators, curriculum developers, instructional designers, advocates, policymakers, researchers, academicians, and students.




Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency


Book Description

The recent rise to prominence of renewable energy and energy efficiency has been driven by their potential to lower the environmental impacts of energy use. As these technologies mature they must demonstrate not only their environmental benefits, but also their economic competitiveness. The relative costs and benefits of each potential project, whether large or small, must be systematically modelled and assessed before they can be financed and implemented. Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency: Assessment of Projects and Policies deals with the appraisal of such projects against financial and non-financial criteria, illustrating the assessment tools necessary to make appropriate, evidence based decisions as efficiently as possible. The most important technologies are first described, stressing their economic and performance characteristics. Key project appraisal concepts are then introduced, approaches to modelling the cash flows in energy projects are described, and the issues of uncertainty and optimisation are fully discussed. These financial concepts, together with methods for estimating greenhouse gas emissions, are extended to address aspects of energy policy. Illustrated with many case studies this is an ideal introduction to financial and non-financial appraisal techniques as applied to energy efficient and renewable energy technologies.