1. Using Learning Sciences to Inform Cyber Security Education Mark Guzdial School of Interactive Computing 2. Story Cyber Security Education requires thinking about how computing works. For programmers, why some practices create holes/opportunities. For end-users, why some activities compromise security. We need everyone to learn about cyber security. What can learning sciences tell us about encouraging that kind of learning? Lesson #1: Context matters. The Story of Computing for All at Georgia Tech. Lesson #2: Identity matters. Teaching Graphics Designers who reject CS about CS. Lesson #3: Structure matters. Subgoal Labels can Dramatically Improve Learning . 3. High School Participation in AP STEM Disciplines Chris Stephenson, CSTA, 2010 4. Thanks to Brian Danielak 5. Most developers never take CS Computing is at the core of the modern society and modern economy. Computing is key to innovation in many disciplines. Most people who use programming are not professional programmers Estimates: ~13 million non-professional programmer/end-user programmers in US by 2012, vs. ~3 million professional software developers (Scaffidi, Shaw, & Myers, 2005) 5 6. Lesson #1: Context Matters Fall 1999: All students at Georgia Tech must take a course in computer science. Considered part of General Education, like mathematics, social science, humanities 1999-2003: Only one course met the requirement. Shackelfords pseudocode approach in 1999 Later Scheme: How to Design Programs (MIT Press) 7. One-class CS1: Pass (A, B, or C) vs. WDF (Withdrawal, D or F) Success Rates in CS1 from Fall 1999 to Spring 2002 (Overall: 78%) Architecture 46.7% Biology 64.4% Economics 53.5% History 46.5% Management 48.5% Public Policy 47.9% 8. Contextualized Computing Education Whats going on? Research results: Computing is tedious, boring, irrelevant Since Spring 2003, Georgia Tech teaches three introductory CS courses. Based on Margolis and Fishers alternative paths Each course introduces computing using a context (examples, homework assignments, lecture discussion) relevant to majors. Make computing relevant by teaching it in terms of what computers are good for (from the students perspective) 9. Media Computation: Teaching in a Relevant Context Presenting CS topics with media projects and examples Iteration as creating negative and grayscale images Indexing in a range as removing redeye Algorithms for blending both images and sounds Linked lists as song fragments woven to make music Information encodings as sound visualizations 9 10. Results:CS1Media Computation 86.470% 88.360% 84.710% 89.870% 91.940% 87.500% 80.330% 82.900% 77.460% 12.540% 10.270% 14.650% 9.370% 7.580% 11.410% 19.650% 17.100% 22.540% Total Fall03 Females Fall03 Males Fall03 Total Sp04 Females Sp04 Males Sp04 Total Fall04 Females Fall04 Males Fall04 WDF Pass Change in Success rates in CS1 Media Computation from Spring 2003 to Fall 2005 (Overall 85%) Architecture 46.7% 85.7% Biology 64.4% 90.4% Economics 54.5% 92.0% History 46.5% 67.6% Management 48.5% 87.8% Public Policy 47.9% 85.4% 11. Voices from Media Computation Students Intl Affairs student (female): I just wish I had more time to play around with that and make neat effects. But JES [IDE for class] will be on my computer forever, so thats the nice thing about this class is that you could go as deep into the homework as you wanted. So, Id turn it in and then me and my roommate would do more after to see what we could do with it. I dreaded CS, but ALL of the topics thus far have been applicable to my future career (& personal) plansthere isn't anything I don't like about this class!!!" "Media Computation is a CS class but with less severity. The media part of the class is extremely visually interesting. I would only take another CS class if it were Media Computation." 12. 12 Survey One Year Later 19% of respondents had programmed since class ended "Did the class change how you interact with computers? Definitely makes me think of what is going on behind the scenes of such programs like Photoshop and Illustrator. 'I understand technological concepts more easily now; I am more willing and able to experience new things with computers now 'I have learned more about the big picture behind computer science and programming. This has helped me to figure out how to use programs that I've never used before. 13. Glitch Game Testers Betsy DiSalvo and Amy Bruckman Engaging African-American Teen Males in CS. Hiring them as game-testers, to get them to go below the surface of the technology. Of the 33 young men who participated in the program, all completed high school and over half took post-secondary computing classes 14. Lesson for Cyber Security Education Context matters. Students will learn more if they know why theyre learning it. Value of the context is judged by the student. Its not valuable because you say it is. 15. Lesson #2: Graphic designers who program Brian Dorn studied graphics designers who program. Conducted a series of interviews and assessment activities. Found that these subjects want more computer science, but dont find courses (and most other resources) adequate (Dorn & Guzdial, ICER 2010) P10: So, that was a really long way of saying yes, I think that an academic study would make me a better programmer, but not by a whole lot. 16. Where are they getting their CS knowledge? Mostly on-line: FAQs and other documentation Books (when applicable) Lots of examples and networking. Not so much classes 16 Dorn & Guzdial, CHI 2010 17. What do software engineers do? Answer: The Boring Stuff. P2: I was able to take different samples from different places and instead of just being let's say an MIS major, or computer science major, you know it'syou're not going to be front-end anything with computer science. You're going to be back-end everything. P4: I think as a front-end developer, you focus more on the design and the usability, and you're focusing more on the audience. And then on the back-end I think you're focused on more, these are like the software developers. And they're programming something, and they don't really see what it's gonna look like; they're just making it work. 18. Who is in CS? P2: I went to a meeting for some kind of programmers, something or other. And they were OLD, and they were nerdy, and they were boring! And I'm like, this is not my personality. Like I can't work with people like that. And they worked at like IBM, or places like that. They've been doing, they were working with Pascal. And I didntI couldn't see myself in that lifestyle for that long. P5: I don't know a whole ton of programmers, but the ones I know, they enjoy seeing them type up all these numbers and stuff and what it makes things do. Um, whereas I just do it, to get it done and to get paid. To be honest. The design aspect is what really interests me a lot more. 18 19. Theyre Lost without Initial Knowledge Learning less than they might because of a lack of deep knowledge. For example: Exploring code by searching Google for function and variable names. Learning about Java when programming in JavaScript Brians experiment: Given a case library with conceptual information vs. a code repository alone, what gets learned, used, and liked? (ICER 2011) 20. 20 21. Bottomline: Cases work Both groups like the code/cases. Both groups coded the problems the same. Case-users learn the concepts, while repository users do not. 21 22. Lesson for Cyber Security Education Nobody likes broccoli. Nobody seeks to learn to grow broccoli. To reach non-CS professionals who program (but arent professional software developers) and end-users who need to learn cyber security practices: Provide learning where they are looking for it. Embed cyber security education 23. Lesson #3: Restructuring Instruction Educational psychologists really know something about learning & teaching. When everyone is demanding your classes, you dont have to sweat it. But to teach the content that students are not demanding, we do have to sweat it. 24. Helping students figure out process Provide worked examples (Anderson et al., 1984) Label subgoals in worked examples (Catrambone, 1994; 1998) Successful in other domains (e.g., statistics) Hypothesis: Students remember the subgoals, and transfer those. Subgoal labels groups steps of a worked example into a meaningful unit Helps students differentiate between structural and incidental information Provide framework for general mental model of process 25. Employing Subgoal Labels in CS Ed Used these techniques to teach Android App Inventor to programming novices 2 groups (N=40, No App Inventor experience): Original/Conventional (created by Barbara Ericson) Subgoal-labeled Materials were identical except for the subgoal labels 26. Experiment Procedure 2 hour-long sessions Session 1 5 min demographic questionnaire 40 min instructional period for first app 15 min assessment 1 Session 2: A Week Later 10 min assessment 2 25 min instructional period for second app 25 min assessment 3 15 minutes to answer questions 10 minutes to make a new (third) app to specification 27. Example of Written Materials Subgoal Define Variables from Built-in Click on "Built-In" and "Definition" and pull out a def variable. Click on the "variable" and replace it with "fortuneList". This creates a variable called "fortuneList". Click on "Lists" and drag out a call make a list Click on "Text" and drag out a text text block and drop it next to "item". Click on the rightmost "text" and replace it with your first fortune. Handle Events from My Blocks Click on "My Blocks" and "Button1". Drag out a when Button1.Click. Non-subgoal Click on "Built-In" and "Definition" and pull out a def variable. Click on the "variable" and replace it with "fortuneList". This creates a variable called "fortuneList". Click on "Lists" and drag out a call make a list Click on "Text" and drag out a text text block and drop it next to "item". Click on the rightmost "text" and replace it with your first fortune. Click on "My Blocks" and "Button1". Drag out a when Button1.Click. 28. Original/Conventional Video 29. Video with Subgoals 30. Results: Overall 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 Attempted Correct Subgoal Conventional p = .002, f = .53 p = .02, f = .38 31. Results: Time r between time and correct = .06 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 Time Subgoal Conventional p = .03, f = .37 What this means: Subgoal group was faster, but faster didnt mean that they did worse. 32. Results: Retention Assessment 0 2 4 6 8 10 Attempted Correct Subgoal Conventional p > .05, f = .25 p = .01, f = .42 33. Results: Define Variable Step in Transfer Task 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 Define Variable Subgoal Conventional p < .001, f = .61 34. Results: Less thrashing Side observation: Less thrashing. Participants in the subgoal group were less likely to drag out blocks while working through assessment tasks (p < 0.02) r between correctness and #blocks = -.349 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Blocks p = .02, f = .91 35. Lesson for Cyber Security Education Figure out what students are having trouble with. Robert Bjorks Desirable Difficulties. Teach that. 36. Conclusions Computing education isnt getting everywhere and everyone. We need everyone to get cyber security education. Lesson #1: Context matters. People learn if they appreciate why its interesting and valuable. Lesson #2: Identity matters. Many people reject CS. We have to teach them where theyre looking for information. Lessons #3: Structure matters. Figure out what students are having trouble learning, and teach that. 37. With thanks to our supporters US National Science Foundation Statewide BPC Alliance: Project Georgia Computes! http://www.gacomputes.org Expanding Computing Education Pathways Alliance, http://expandingcomputing.org CCLI and CPATH Grants, and now CE21 to produce new media GVU Center, and Institute for People and Technology (iPaT) at Georgia Tech 38. Thank you! http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~mark.guzdial http://home.cc.gatech.edu/csl http://www.georgiacomputes.org For more on Media Computation approach: http://www.mediacomputation.org 39. Spare Slides 40. Asking women: What is CS to you? MediaComp Tradition al Rich, Perry, Guzdial, SIGCSE 41. Scoring Answers scored on 2 dimensions Subgoals ATTEMPTED Subgoals CORRECT 46 subgoals across the 3 assessments Interrater reliability ICC(A) = .97, Cronbachs alpha = .98, r = .96 42. Why dont they take CS classes? P7: I started out in computer science, but didn't like it at all. The fact that I wasn't learning anything new. I took an intro to programming course, and then I talked to some other people in the program and it was all repetition and I guess there wasn't any really new. So you weren't really learning any concepts. You were learning the languages, and I didn't like that at all. So that's why I left 42 43. 43 Our Three CS1s Today CS1301/1321 Introduction to Computing Traditional CS1 for our CS majors and Science majors (math, physics, psychology, etc.). Now, uses robots. CS1371 Computing for Engineers CS1 for Engineers. Same topics as CS1301, but using MATLAB with Engineering problems. CS1315 Introduction to Media Computation for Architecture, Management, and Liberal Arts students. 44. The typical CS student: Future Software Engineer To produce reliable, robust, secure software. To work in interdisciplinary teams. To use appropriate design notations, such as UML. To work in multiple programming languages. 45. Counting States % female exam-takers # Black exam-takers # Hispanic exam-takers 46. Who is in CS? Like Yardi and Bruckman (ICER 2007), participants held negative stereotypes of those in CS: P2: I went to a meeting for some kind of programmers, something or other. And they were OLD, and they were nerdy, and they were boring! And I'm like, this is not my personality. Like I can't work with people like that. And they worked at like IBM, or places like that. They've been doing, they were working with Pascal. And I didntI couldn't see myself in that lifestyle for that long. P5: I don't know a whole ton of programmers, but the ones I know, they enjoy seeing them type up all these numbers and stuff and what it makes things do. Um, whereas I just do it, to get it done and to get paid. To be honest. The design aspect is what really interests me a lot more. 46 47. Why dont they take CS classes? P7: I started out in computer science, but didn't like it at all. The fact that I wasn't learning anything new. I took an intro to programming course, and then I talked to some other people in the program and it was all repetition and I guess there wasn't any really new. So you weren't really learning any concepts. You were learning the languages, and I didn't like that at all. So that's why I left Do we just teach languages? Why dont they see the concepts? 47 48. Who are graphics designers who program? Mostly arts/media trained. Dont consider themselves programmers. But do some significant automation of their process. 48 Dorn & Guzdial, ICER 2006 49. Richard Dawkins on Biology as Computer Science On US National Public Radio in April 2007: GROSS: You close your book saying, "I am thrilled to be alive at a time when humanity is pushing against the limits of understanding." How do you think that's happening in your field of evolutionary biology? Mr. DAWKINS: Well, it's the most exciting time to be a biologist Since Watson and Crick in 1953, biology has become a sort of branch of computer science. I mean, genes are just long computer tapes, and they use a code which is just another kind of computer code. It's quaternary rather than binary, but it's read in a sequential way just like a computer tape. It's transcribed. It's copied and pasted. All the familiar metaphors from computer science fit. 50. They want to know more P1: So I mean technology changes. So what I am ideally looking to focus on are like the foundation. The things that change less, you know what I'm saying? Like computer science um, theory, you know I'm saying I mean? That kind of like, it's applicable to what I do, and it's not so constantly shifting. P10: I was the kind of programmer that could make stuff work. But I didn't really have solid understandings. At one point I picked up a book on design patterns and I looked at it, and I was like that's really, that's really interestingSo I was like well I wanna keep doing that because it made me a better programmer. And it was more fun to program, and it was more thought 50 51. Results at Other Schools Similar retention results at 2 year public Gainesville College (Tew, Fowler, Guzdial, SIGCSE 2005) and at (much more diverse) U. Illinois-Chicagos CS0.5 (Sloan & Troy, SIGCSE 2008) Would you like more CS? GT 15.2% Strongly Disagree.