"Increased enrollments in computer science programs presents a new challenge of quickly accommodating higher enrollment in computer science introductory courses. Because peer teaching scales with enrollment size, it is a promising solution for supporting computer science students in this setting. However, pedagogical and logistical challenges can arise when implementing a large peer teaching program. To study these challenges, we developed a transparent online tool, My Digital Hand, for tracking one-To-one peer teaching interactions. We deployed the tool across three universities in large CS2 computer science courses. The data gathered confirms the pedagogical and logistical challenges that exist at scale and gives insight into ways we might address them. Using this information, we developed the second iteration of My Digital Hand to better support peer teaching. This paper presents the modified tool for use by the computer science education community."
Aaron J. Smith, Kristy Elizabeth Boyer, Jeffrey Forbes, Sarah Heckman, and Ketan Mayer-Patel. 2017. My Digital Hand: A Tool for Scaling Up One-to-One Peer Teaching in Support of Computer Science Learning. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 549-554. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3017680.3017800
1. SUMMARY
The authors were trying to address an interesting problem with large class where it is difficult to maintain a healthy ratio of students v.s teaching assistants. The paper proposed the idea of “My digital hand” - an open source project to help facilitate peer-tutoring. Through the lense of that software, the paper also contributes insights into how peer-tutoring works and a model for peer tutoring.
2. STRENGTHS
The paper has a unique strength on the “real world” aspect with strong collaboration between three big universities, involving hundreds of students within two semesters. The tool is open source. The paper was very well written and easy to understand.
3. WEAKNESSES
Emperical findings could be better. Perhaps, the project could have been extended to 3 or 4 semesters with more adjustments to the model. For example, setting a cut-off for “interaction” time makes sense but we should probably measure how helpful it is in terms of problem solving and in terms of efficiency (physical and emotional). I would recommend a “snooze” button function so that the peer-tutor can extend the normal time window in cases where it is more efficient to spend few more minutes to get certain points across.
