Paper Info
Title
Lessons learned from a PLTL-CS program
Abstract
The Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) approach has previously been shown to be effective in recruiting and retaining students, particularly under-represented students, in undergraduate introductory CS courses. In PLTL, small groups of students are led by an undergraduate peer and work together to solve problems related to CS. At Columbia University, the Columbia Emerging Scholars Program has used PLTL in an effort to increase enrollment in CS courses beyond the introductory level, and to increase the number of students who select Computer Science as their major, by demonstrating that CS is necessarily a collaborative activity that focuses more on problem solving and algorithmic thinking than on programming. Over the past six semesters, over 80 students have completed the program, and preliminary results indicate that this program has had a positive effect on increasing participation in the major. This paper discusses our experiences of building and expanding the Columbia Emerging Scholars program, and addresses such topics as recruiting, training, scheduling, student behavior, and evaluation. We expect that this paper will provide a valuable set of lessons learned to other educators who seek to launch or grow a PLTL program at their institution as well.
Year
DOI
Venue
2011
10.1145/1953163.1953226
SIGCSE
Keywords
Field
DocType
algorithmic thinking,peer-led team learning,cs course,pltl-cs program,undergraduate introductory cs course,pltl program,collaborative activity,computer science,columbia university,columbia emerging scholars program,introductory level,team learning,human factors,measurment
Team learning,Computer science,Algorithmic thinking,Outreach,Knowledge management,Peer led team learning
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
4
0.72
3
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Christian Murphy133219.87
Rita Manco Powell2163.32
Kristen Parton3485.14
Adam H. Cannon4252.38