Caitlin Davey: First Year Programming: Let All the Flowers Bloom

[joenash]

Our next presentation, for March 24th at 5pm UTC, is with Caitlin Davey, presenting the paper First Year Programming: Let All the Flowers Bloom.

Tune in at https://twitch.tv/twilioquest,

Caitlin Davey is an educator who works at the intersection of technology and learning. Her career focus is on training adults in the most in-demand tech skills. She first got her start in tech as a front-end web developer. After a few years of declaring variables, she declared a major in Instructional Design and Technology. Since her pivot to instructional design, she has developed and led training programs across modalities such as e-learning courses, virtual instructor-led training programs, and in-person workshops.

Caitlin likes this article because:

• It addresses a tough problem of supporting different levels of students (weak, average, strong) to succeed in an introductory programming course.
• The study described leverages Bloom's taxonomy which has six levels where each successive level depends on the behaviors learners acquired in the previous level. I like that in Bloom's taxonomy the designer thinks about the progression of knowledge and behaviors learners build.
• I like that this research aims to move beyond rote learning across levels to true understanding. As someone who'd done a fair amount of rote learning, I like the creative approach to preventing learning by sheer memorization.

[joenash]

Some resources shared by Caitlin:

• Bloom's Taxonomy: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/
• Learning objective builder, "The Diffferentiator": https://www.byrdseed.com/differentiator/
• Understanding by Design: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/understanding-by-design/
• How People Learn: https://usablelearning.com/the-book/
• 3 Star Learning: https://3starlearningexperiences.wordpress.com//

[joenash]

Twitch recording https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1435428654
YouTube coming!