About

I am a computer science education researcher and professor. My goal is to make learning programming more accessible to all. My current research interest is in if, when, and how we can apply educational psychology principles like worked examples, subgoal labels, modality, and cognitive load to the computing discipline, specifically in learning how to program.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Machine Learning
• Mathematics education
• Programming language
• Artificial Intelligence
• Psychology
• Data science
• Medical education
• Knowledge management
• Software engineering
• Management science
• Management
• Medicine

Selected publications

• ICER 2025: Call for Attendance

  ACM SIGCSE Bulletin · 2025-07-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Start your August off right by attending the ACM International Computing Education Research (ICER) Conference in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA! Festivities begin on Sunday, 3rd with the Doctoral Consortium and Works-In-Progress in Rice Hall. All attendees are invited to the opening reception in The Rotunda, the original library designed by Thomas Jefferson (3rd President of the United States) and centerpiece of the Academical Village on Sunday evening, 5-6:30pm. While dining on light refreshments you can reconnect with old friends while meeting new ones.

  PublisherDOI

• Curriculum for a Comprehensive Statewide In-Service CS Teacher Training Program

  2025-02-12 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author

  Training teachers to teach high-quality computer science courses is an important step towards increasing participation in computer science. To meet this need, our Research Practitioner Partnership (RPP) was formed with the primary goal of creating a comprehensive, graduate-level program to train in-service CS teachers with little to no prior CS coursework. Since its formation, the RPP has iteratively designed, implemented, and evaluated a five-course program to improve participants' knowledge of computer science content and pedagogy while allowing them to earn the state's grades 5-12 computer science endorsement. Our program has successfully scaled from a single-site pilot to a truly statewide, multi-site program, emphasizing educator-based, standards-based, and cohort-based instruction. Currently, the RPP serves 250 in-service participants.

  PublisherDOI

• ICER 2025 Call for Participation

  ACM SIGCSE Bulletin · 2025-04-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We would like to invite you to Charlottesville, Virginia, USA to attend the 21st ICER Conference. The ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (ICER) will be held 3–6 August 2025 in the Forum Hotel on the beautiful grounds of the University of Virginia. The conference will include an in-person Doctoral Consortium on Sunday, 3 August. Attendees are invited to an opening reception in The Rotunda, the original library designed by Thomas Jefferson (third President of the United States) and centerpiece of the Academical Village on Sunday evening, 5–6:30pm.

  PublisherDOI

• How Good are Large Language Models at Generating Subgoal Labels?

  2025-02-18

  articleSenior author

  The use of subgoal labels in introduction to programming classrooms has been shown to improve student performance, learning, retention, and reduce students' drop out rates. However, creating and adding subgoal labels to programming assignments is often hard to articulate and very time-intensive for instructors. In Computing Education Research, Large Language Models (LLMs) have been widely used to generate human-like outputs such as worked examples and source code. In this work, we explore whether ChatGPT could be used to generate high-quality and appropriate subgoal labels in two programming curricula. Our qualitative data analysis suggests that LLMs can assist instructors in creating subgoal labels in their classrooms, opening up directions to empower students' learning experience in programming classrooms.

  PublisherDOI

• Panel Session: A Vision for the Next 15 Years of Computing Education

  2024-10-13

  article

  The session will present the final report of an NSF sponsored workshop tasked with creating a vision for computing education for the next 15 years. Within several broad themes identified, the panelists were asked to probe further into where the field should be heading and what difficult questions we need to tackle. We will use the final report as a basis for discussion with the attendees and ask them the same hard questions we asked ourselves when writing this report to see how these questions shape their views of where computing education needs to be in the next 15 years.

  PublisherDOI

• Exploring Novices' Problem-Solving Strategies in Computing and Math Domains

  2024-11-12 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• ICER 2024: Call for Participation

  ACM SIGCSE Bulletin · 2024-07-01

  articleSenior author

  Do you know that the 20th ICER Conference will be happening soon? In Australia? The ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (ICER) will be held at Storey Hall in RMIT University right in the centre of Melbourne.

  PublisherDOI

• ICER 2024: Call for Participation

  ACM SIGCSE Bulletin · 2024-04-01

  articleSenior author

  The 20th annual ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (ICER) will be hosted by RMIT University in the vibrant city of Melbourne, Australia. The conference will take place Tuesday 13th - Thursday 15th August 2024, following the Doctoral Consortium and the Work in Progress Workshop which will be held on Monday 12th August. You can participate physically by traveling to Melbourne or virtually where there will be an option for online discussions during the conference occurring in the local time zone.

  PublisherDOI

• Piecing Together the Next 15 Years of Computing Education Research Workshop Report

  Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2 · 2022-02-23 · 4 citations

  article

  The session will present an overview of findings of a recently funded NSF workshop that set out to examine the pressing issues for computing education research for the next 15 years. Based on dialogs for scholars working in this area, the workshop participants developed a series of themes and topics that they felt should become the focus of computing education research efforts for the next 15 years. Main themes that emerged and will be discussed in this session include: diversity, equity, inclusion, ethics, broadening participation, teaching, learning, K-12, research to practice, computing's connection to other fields, and computing education research disciplinary issues. The session will focus on interesting research questions from each of these areas that are ripe to be explored as well as enablers and blockers to the progress of this work.

  PublisherDOI

• K-12 Computing Education and Education Research Resources

  Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2 · 2022-02-23 · 3 citations

  article

  In this special session, we present tools and resources created from educational theory to make teaching and scholarship easier and more effective. Included in these resources are CS Teachers Association, CSforAll, CS Teaching Tips, CT Pathways Toolkit, EngageCSEdu, CS Assessments Hub, Cybersecurity, and CS Ed Research Resource Center. These tools/resources provide assistance at the district and school level (administrators, curriculum designers), classroom level (teachers), and researcher/evaluator level. In addition to these overviews, we will provide information on where to find them and will leave ample time for questions from attendees.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Developing and Assessing Subgoal Labels for Imperative Programming to Improve Student Learning Outcomes

  NSF · $267k · 2017–2021

Frequent coauthors

• Lauren E. Margulieux

  Georgia State University

  15 shared

• Adrienne Decker

  University at Buffalo, State University of New York

  13 shared

• Mark Guzdial

  Michigan United

  13 shared

• Brad Richards

  Yale University

  9 shared

• Barbara Ericson

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  8 shared

• Carol Zander

  University of Washington Bothell

  8 shared

• Laurie Murphy

  James Cook University

  7 shared

• Kate Sanders

  7 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Computer Science

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  2008

• M.S., Computer Science

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  2003

• B.S., Computer Science

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  2001

Awards & honors

• University of Nebraska Omaha Alumni IS&T Outstanding Teachin…
• Georgia Tech College of Computing Dissertation Award 2018
• Foley Scholars Finalist 2015
• ICER Chairs’ Best Paper Award 2015
• SPSU Outstanding Faculty Award 2002 & 2007