Employer surveys and other sources indicate that CS students need process skills such as communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and problem solving. Further, the AP CS Principles practices include communicating and collaborating. POGIL (Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning) can be used to teach these process skills in high school or college courses. Instead of sitting in lecture or working together with minimal guidance, student teams work through POGIL activities to discover concepts on their own, while the instructor circulates and facilitates learning of key concepts and the development of process skills. Structured roles help students learn to communicate and work in teams more effectively. In this special session, attendees will experience a POGIL activity, learn how process skills are developed and reinforced by POGIL (through a POGIL meta- activity), and see the range of activities available at http://cspogil.org. We will share POGIL activities and discuss how POGIL can transform CS classes at all levels, from high school to graduate-level classes, from small schools to large universities.
Conference Paper. January 2016. DOI 10.1145/2839509.2844673. Conference: the 47th ACM Technical Symposium.