1. For the past few years in the College of Computing's introductory computing course, students have been learning how to program using pseudo-code rather than programming in a "real" language. The developers of the course proposed this approach because they noticed that students were getting so hung up in syntax and compiling that they often didn't have energy left to address important design issues in programming. With pseudo-code, they thought, the students would focus foremost on design and not have to worry about dealing with low-level syntax problems.

Based on your readings, critique the use of pseudo-code for learning to program.

By the way, use of pseudo-code has not been as successful as the course developers thought, and the introductory courses will be incorporating programming in Scheme in the coming year.

2. BRIDGING RESEARCH AND PRACTICE: The paper that you read by Donavan, Bransford, and Pellegrino talks about the "bridge" between research and practice. Part of the problem may be that no theory of learning encompasses all aspects of what learning is. Part of the problem may be that the learning is just so big that we haven't understood all of it yet.

Let's connect theory to a particular practice in education, problem-based learning.

(a) Both the Barron et al. and the Kolodner et al. papers explain their use of problem-based learning from their own theoretical perspectives. Synthesize across the two of these papers: What are the theories of learning that each are drawing from to support their use of problem-based learning?

(b) The attached "Box 3.4" describes an experiment where students who were taught an "understanding" method of finding the area of a figure were able to transfer their knowledge better than those who were taught a "rote" method. Use this finding to further explain the success of problem-based learning.

3. Consider the following two summer camp programs.

A. VR Camp

Students are given access to graphics workstations, software, and goggles and gloves VR gear. They are challenged to make a VR simulation of anything they want. Suggested projects include the solar system, the circulatory system, or a race track. Adult counselors skilled in the development of VR are available to help the students when asked, but do not direct activity. A community presentation of their projects is held on the last day of camp.

B. Science Camp

Students are each assigned to work with a different adult scientist. The scientists are in the middle of long-term research projects, but have each designed a part of their experiment that students can perform. Most of the projects involve life sciences. For example, one project is about the effect of large doses of caffeine on the development of baby rats. Each scientist carefully supervises the work of his/her student intern(s). A community presentation of their results is held on the last day of camp.

Compare and contrast these two camps. Issues to address might include: pedagogical foundations, roles of teachers and students, community and group structure, motivation, authenticity, and power relationships.

4. You are on the review panel for a grant-giving agency. The panel has received a proposal from an English professor interested in interactive narrative. He plans to create a system in which users can extend one another's stories on the Internet, and intends to use this system to teach creative writing. The applicant has a strong background in his discipline, but little or no training in the learning sciences. His proposal consists in its entirety of a general description of what the software will look like: users can start a story, and others can extend it. One story can be extended by multiple people in different ways. You have decided to recommend that the agency tell him to revise his proposal and resubmit it. Write a short, informal, confidential letter to your fellow members of the review panel justifying your decision (the applicant will not see that letter). Next, write a longer more formal letter to the applicant explaining what he should do to make his proposal stronger before resubmitting it. Note that no learning sciences readings are cited in his current bibliography. In your letter, you may recommend specific background readings for the applicant.

5. Two years ago at a poster session and panel discussion at AERA about Learning from Design, all of us on the panel (Kolodner, Kafai, Penner, Hoadley, others) discovered that we had incorporated something very similar to LBD's "gallery walk" into the set of classroom activities that support learning from design activities. In a gallery walk, students present their design ideas and/or a product they are working on to the rest of the class, and others comment on it -- asking questions, making suggestions, and giving advice.

Each of us designed our classroom approach based on a different perspective: case-based reasoning, constructionism, pragmatics, and development of expertise. Explain the appeal and purpose of the gallery walk from each perspective.

6. DESIGNING A PROGRAMMING ENVIRONMENT FOR ISDP: The Instructional Software Development Process by Harel, Kafai, and Papert has been highly influential in learning sciences. For reasons of history and personal interest, ISDP used some variant of Logo in all of its iterations (LogoWriter originally, Mindstorms later).

Imagine that you could use any language you might want for ISDP, and you can actually build the environment for that language (and you have gobs of money and tons of skilled programmers). What would you want for that environment?

(a) Identify at least two characteristics of a target language that would make it appropriate for ISDP?

(b) Identify at least three other aspects of the programming environment that would make it suitable for ISDP. These aspects could be design goals, could be environment features, or could even be interface features.

(c) How could your environment help to address any of the weaknesses of ISDP?

7. COGNITIVE APPRENTICESHIP IN THE MODERN DAY: Collins, Brown, and Newman wrote their paper on Cognitive Apprenticeship in 1989, over 10 years ago now. They wrote their paper BEFORE the recent huge increases in machine zorch, the Web, Java, cheap pen input (digitizing tablets), and PDAs.

Take any technology listed above, or other, invented since 1989. Describe how it can be used to achieve some aspect of cognitive apprenticeship, focusing specifically on the Collins, Brown, and Newman domain areas of reading, writing, and mathematics.

8. Nichole Pinkard decides that her "Say, Say Oh Playmate" software could be used to teach mathematics as well as reading, using the rhythms and patterns of clapping games to teach counting and simple mathematical sequences. She revises the software for this new learning goal, and now would like to evaluate whether it is effective. Design an evaluation plan for the project.