Stephen Cooper - US grants

This project deals with the question of how bacteria grow and synthesize their cell walls. This laboratory has determined the rate and topography of cell wall peptidoglycan synthesis during the division cycle of gram- negative, rod-shaped bacteria. Prior to invagination, wall growth occurs only in the cylindrical side wall. After initiation of invagination, peptidoglycan synthesis is partitioned between the new pole and the lengthening side wall. The biochemical basis for the partitioning of peptidoglycan synthesis and the manner in which the cell initiates constrictions are unknown. Reverse-phase HPLC methods (which can resolve up to eighty different fragments in a peptidoglycan digest), combined with the membrane-elution method for cell cycle analysis, will be used to study the composition and biosynthesis of the peptidoglycan made at different times during the division cycle. The organism to be studied, Salmonella typhimurium, has been shown in this laboratory to incorporate diaminopimelic acid, a specific precursor of cell wall, 30-50 times more efficiently than any strain of Escherichia coli. The main questions to be answered are whether, when side-wall and poles are compared, there is a compositional difference, a difference in crosslinking, or a difference in maturation of the peptidoglycan. Autoradiographic analysis using the electron microscope will be used to measure the precise pattern of pole synthesis. Previous work from this laboratory has also shown that there is evidence for the insertion of an excess amount of membrane at the site of a future pole in a daughter cell. This insertion may be analogous to the periseptal annuli which are proposed to be the initial events in pole formation. The pattern of membrane synthesis during the division cycle will be measure using the membrane-elution technique. The topography of insertion of surface material during the division cycle will be analyzed using the methocel-segregation method. The stability and turnover of peptidoglycan will also be studied. Evidence from this laboratory based on the kinetics of elution of radioactivity from cells labeled with leucine and diaminopimelic acid indicates that in Salmonella typhimurium, there is no measurable turnover resulting in the release of radioactivity to the medium. In Escherichia coli, studies from other laboratories using standard techniques have revealed a great deal of turnover. Both the membrane-elution method and the standard method will be used to analyze the stability of peptidoglycan in different bacteria under identical conditions.

Project Summary
This proof of concept project develops a set of instructional materials for teaching fundamental programming concepts using an exciting simulation and visualization package. This package provides an environment that supports the creation of 3-dimensional, interactive, animated virtual worlds (which can be easily built by novices!). It is expected that this approach will strengthen and enhance student skills as well as provide sufficient programming experience to improve student performance and retention in introductory computer science (CS 1) and beyond.

The results of this project will be the creation of a set of instructional materials: textbook, laboratory exercises, lecture and demonstration slides, and a reference for the animation software, and the collection and analysis of preliminary data on the use of these materials. All curricular materials will be freely available and disseminated online.

The approach used in this project takes advantage of high-level interest in graphics, animation and storytelling. The Java-based Animation: Building viRtual Worlds for Object-oriented programming in Community colleges (JABRWROC) project uses simulation and visualization in a 3D, interactive, animation environment to introduce fundamental, object oriented programming concepts to novice programmers. The objectives are to 1) decrease attrition in introductory programming courses in community colleges, where open enrollment is conductive to high numbers of "at-risk" students, 2) attract students to computer and technology-related majors, 3) improve computer literacy courses to meet computer FITness guidelines defined by the NRC, by reintroducing programming /problem-solving modules, and 4) provide professional development for community college faculty in the use of innovative technology. Implementation occurs in three phases: developing and modifying instructional materials including lab exercises for traditional and returning learners; pilot testing in on-campus and distance learning classes, and dissemination. The potential impact includes over 6000 community college students on three campuses over the 3 year period. Urban students, specifically women and minorities, will be the primary audience for these new course materials. The assessment and evaluation will include persistence and attrition rates, student achievement, attitude surveys and interviews with instructors and students.

The experimental work in the project will measure gene expression during the division cycle of eukaryotic, mammalian cells of both human and mouse origin. The newly developed membrane elution (or baby machine) method for producing undisturbed, synchronous cultures of eukaryotic cells will be used to analyze the precise pattern and timing of expression of different genes during the mammalian division cycle. This method produces unperturbed synchronized cells that exhibit three generations of synchronized divisions with the proper DNA contents and cell sizes observed throughout the successive cell cycles. The hypothesis to be tested is that there are few cell-cycle-regulated genes in eukaryotic cells, and in particular, there are no G1-phase specific patterns of gene expression. In the membrane-elution method, exponentially growing, unperturbed cells are bound to a membrane. The membrane is washed with warm medium so cells grow and divide on the membrane. Only newborn cells are released from the membrane by division. A short collection period yields a synchronized culture. The broader impact of this work is that the entire field of cell biology, arguably depends on a correct understanding of the nature of the cell cycle. If the hypothesis proves correct, it could have a major impact on how we understand the cell cycle.

This project uses a high-impact, high-interest program visualization environment, Alice, to introduce a strong core of fundamental programming concepts (objects, classes, methods, functions, decisions, variables, parameters, loops) and problem-solving and design techniques to beginning programmers. It addresses the high attrition rate of computer science majors during their first year of study as well as the need for innovative materials and strategies for teaching programming in computer literacy and service courses. Unfortunately, students who are not computer science majors often have poor attitudes toward programming courses and the enrollment of women in computer science has been declining. The results of a previous NSF proof-of-concept project includes evidence that this approach can significantly improve achievement and retention of high-risk CS-majors during their first year. There is also anecdotal evidence that this approach captures student interest and motivates positive attitudes for women and minorities.

Previous work has yielded a prototype of instructional materials and a textbook that work synergistically with the Alice high-interest software environment. The prototype materials have been pilot tested and peer reviewed. Other faculty members have successfully used these materials, but no formal testing has been done beyond the pilot project. Thus, the project includes using and formally testing the revised materials at regional test sites during the first and second years of the project. The regional test sites are at different types of institutions, serving students with diverse backgrounds and career goals.

This project is developing two assessment instruments to measure student learning outcomes and student attitudes in introductory computing courses. One instrument measures student learning outcomes for introductory programming courses and one measures students' attitudes towards computers and computer science. Each is designed to measure fundamental concepts that are not language specific. The validity and reliability of the resultant instruments is being demonstrated through extensive testing.

Intellectual Merit: The project is based on the need to devise new assessment tools and to update two-decades-old assessment tools for computer science education. The need for new and updated assessment tools is particularly crucial in a dynamic field where changes in, and availability of, computing technology has reverberating effects on pedagogy and student experience in the classroom. The learning outcomes instrument is based on the content domain defined by the IEEE/ACM Computing Curriculum 2001 for a first course in object-oriented programming.

Broader Impacts: A primary goal of many computer science education projects is to determine the extent to which a given instructional intervention has had an impact on student outcomes. However, valid and reliable assessment instruments that measure the desired goals and outcomes across different platforms are not currently available. This project is filling that gap. Careful attention is dedicated during the validation process to the impact that gender and ethnicity have on the validity of the resultant instruments.

The PAthways to Careers in Mathematics And Computer Science (PACMACS) Bridge program at Saint Joseph's University is awarding scholarships to students pursuing mathematics and computer science degrees who demonstrate both academic potential and financial need. Special emphasis is being given to recruiting minority high school students from Philadelphia public and private high schools. Scholars are participating in a bridge program where they receive special assistance during the transition period from high school to undergraduate studies. Scholars are being supported by activities including faculty mentoring, supervised study sessions, tutoring, and individualized tutoring.

Id: CNS 0724890
PI: Stephen Cooper (St. Joseph's University)
Title: Alice Workshop 2007, Southwestern US

This CISE special project provides support for a workshop for 60 faculty members using the Alice software for introductory and experienced programming instruction. This workshop is a continuation of the prior 3 successful Alice workshops held in the summer of 2005 in the southeastern part of the United States. This workshop includes interactive and active learning style lab sessions modeling instructional use of Alice as well as a focus on pedagogical issues related to teaching with Alice.

Intellectual Merit: This project extends the use of the Alice environment to a broad educational and research community. It includes not only instructional experiences but also the development of a significant set of resources and curricular materials that are of value to the computing community. The project extends and leverages the significant funding the PIs have received to develop and disseminate Alice which is now in use by over 100 institutions and countless researchers.

Broader Impact: This project extends the Alice community to a new geographical area, the west coast. The Alice environment with its 3D animation approach is a fundamental paradigm shift of methodology for teaching problem solving and programming. The Alice workshop is essential for faculty adopting this approach. Alice has also shown potential to broaden participation in computing through its human-centered, interactive approach and thus promote diversity and the inclusion of underrepresented groups in computing.

This is a proposal for a 3 year, $1,297,456 project to be conducted as collaboration among 5 higher education institutions and one school system across the country, with St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, PA serving as the lead institution (other collaborators are from Colorado School of Mines, Ithaca College, Santa Clara University, Duke University, and Virginia Beach School System). The primary goal is to attract and retain students in computer science, especially women and underrepresented minorities (including two EPSCoR states). To this end, the project will use Alice, a software program that utilizes 3-D visualization methods, as a medium to create a high-level of interest in computer graphics, animation, and storytelling among high school students, hence to build understanding of object-based programming. Such an IT focus on media and animation is aligned with national computer science standards. The project will build a network of college and high school faculty, who will offer workshops and provide continuing support during the academic year. In each site, pairs of teachers from each participating school (total = 90) will learn with university faculty via a 3-week summer program in which an introduction to using Alice for teaching will be followed by teacher development of materials for students that will then be used to teach high school students. An experimental start at one site will be followed by implementation at four additional sites and culminated with revised implementation at the sixth site (1-4-1 design).

Computer Science (31)

This project, Collaborative Research: Alice and Media Computation, is
creating a Java-based introductory CS curriculum combining the proven
approaches of Alice programming and Media Computation.

Intellectual Merit: This project is developing a course which
presents the same concepts found in typical introductory
computing courses using new examples based on Alice and Media
Computation. Students are using Alice to explore the algorithmic reasoning of
programming and learning the syntax of Java using Media Computation.

Broader Impacts: This project is leveraging the strengths of two
innovative approaches that have been successful in attracting and
retaining students in computer science. The combined approach is
using methods, developed and validated by the original
independent projects, to broaden the appeal of computer science to
less-represented groups, and increase the success of at-risk
students. The results of the project are being disseminated through
a series of six summer workshops.

Computer Science (31)

The project is a collaboration involving St Joseph's University, Ithaca College, and Carnegie-Mellon University. It is integrating Alice, which is a high-impact, high-interest program visualization environment, into the first computer science course. Previous work has provided evidence that this approach can significantly improve achievement and retention of high-risk CS-majors during their first year. The project team is developing instructional materials, including a textbook, laboratory exercises, and lecture/demonstration slides, for teaching the first computer science course using this integrated approach. The major emphasis is using visualization to teach a strong core of fundamental programming concepts and problem-solving techniques in an object-oriented, interactive environment. The effort addresses the high attrition rate of CS-majors during their first year of study, and the investigators are collecting data to determine whether using Alice in the first computer science course reduces the first-year attrition rate. Evaluation efforts include peer reviews, student attitudes and focus groups, attitude surveys, and retention statistics for formative and summative evaluation. The investigators are making all materials available online and disseminating their approach and results through journal articles and presentation at SIGCSE, ITiCSE, FIE, CHI, HCC, and CIT and, for community college faculty, at the Conference for Information Technology and Innovations Conferences, and finally at several Prentice Hall Information Technology (PHIT) Conferences. They also are planning to produce a textbook and create an online community. Broader impacts focus on the wide dissemination of their instructional materials.

This CISE EAGER project supports the development of a resource model that allows educators to effectively find and leverage existing curricular materials, particularly computer science and computational thinking curricular materials. While many previous efforts have attempted to build repositories of course materials, these efforts have been hampered by factors such as a lack of efficient search facilities, a dearth of available/stored materials, an inability to find quality materials, or the user perception of commercial interest in the repository. The overall goal is to create a framework to address four critical issues that have hampered the utility of such repositories thus far: a better search interface, easily usable by computing teachers (especially K-12 teachers), a critical mass of materials, a rating mechanism by teachers, and a system that will appeal to teachers. This project seeks to address the shortcomings of existing repositories by providing the appropriate affordances for search and user feedback/ratings. Moreover, by proactively seeking an initial set of content, this project can help to break the lack-of-content/ lack-of-usage cycle that plagues most existing systems. This Eager project proposes to develop a prototype along these lines with enough content to be a proof-of-concept for such a system. Based on initial results and usage profiles, this project can lay a foundation for how to best proceed in making such a system more broadly used by the computing educational community.

The intellectual merits of this project lies in the strong team and vision for improvement in the field of resources for computing educators. This project should provide a model for development of a digital resource system that is valued and used by educators, particularly K-12 educators. This represents a significant contribution as an enhancement over the current situation in computer science where the existing digital libraries are not widely used. By providing an alternative approach towards searching for high quality computing curricular materials, this project plans to allow high quality computing curricular materials to be accessed and used by a much wider segment of computing teachers. The team is strong, including computer science faculty, K-12 computing educators, educational specialists, and researchers with academic and industry experience with the development of searchable resources.

The broader impacts of this project lie in the potential for long-term benefit to the computing community and to computing educators. If this project is successful, the computing disciplines will have a portal that can be comparable in usability to the successful portals in other STEM disciplines. It will provide an effective dissemination vehicle for high quality curricular materials, developed as through funded and non-funded sources. This project has the potential to improve the teaching of a wide variety of computing topics and courses by becoming a single source computing teachers go to when needing to find high quality curricular materials.

The United States has significant vulnerabilities with respect to Information Assurance (IA). US colleges and universities need to increase the number of qualified professionals to help respond to this threat. This project supports travel for seven US educators and other Information Assurance (IA) experts to attend a working group meeting in Ankara, Turkey. The focus of the working group is to examine key governmental and industry IA education standards and the curricula of existing academic programs. An expected outcome is a report that defines the IA education space along with specific curricular recommendations for a selected topic. This effort is the initial step to developing comprehensive IA curricular recommendations.

Computing - Other (35)

This project is designing and building a serious game prototype for use in helping students to develop secure coding abilities, and is developing high-quality introductory computing laboratory exercises that incorporate game activities as part of laboratory assignments. A serious game has been chosen because the playing of a game allows students to explore topics more sophisticated than they would normally be able to program from scratch as part of an introductory programming class, and because many students enjoy playing video games. Increasingly, there is awareness that security needs to be considered as a design criterion for software development. Its introduction cannot be delayed until students are upperclassmen when they are taught a class in secure coding. Rather than introduce secure coding as a stand-alone topic into an already over-crowded introductory computing class, this project's vision is to integrate it into the laboratory exercises within the course, treating security as a context within which students learn traditional programming/problem solving components. The merits of this project are: 1) teaching beginning programmers about secure coding, and to develop a mechanism to have them programming securely from the start; 2) building a serious game to augment the teaching of secure coding practices and principles; 3) creating high-quality laboratory materials using the context of security as a means of teaching traditional object-oriented programming and problem solving topics; and 4) assessing the effectiveness of this game and these laboratory materials.

This project works with two of the NSF Advanced Technological Education Centers, the Cybersecurity Education Consortium and the CyberWatch Center. These centers are piloting the materials and serving as dissemination vehicles. The results of this work are presented at the Colloquium for Information System Security Education, as well as at more traditional computing education conferences.

Alice is a high-impact, high-interest program visualization environment, that is increasingly being used to teach novices object-oriented programming in a range of courses. Results provide evidence that using Alice can significantly improve achievement, retention and recruitment of high-risk CS majors during their first year. This project is expanding the capabilities of Alice by integrating an intelligent tutoring system (ITS). The ITS has three major functions: 1) intelligent delivery of individualized instructional materials, 2) automatic detection of off-task student behavior and 3) the ability to alert instructors that a student may be having difficulties. Expected project outcomes include the enhanced version of Alice with the ITS and additional curricular materials. Assessment is designed to determine if student achievement and attitudes improve as a result of using the ITS. The PIs expect to grow the community of ITS developers for computing education. The Alice community includes hundreds of college faculty and high school teachers across a diverse collection of settings and has been used by thousands of students.

US college and universities are experiencing a dramatic decline in enrollment of computing majors, despite a predicted, rapid increase in future jobs in the computer science (CS) and information technology (IT) sectors. This reflects a decline in the number of students taking the AP computer science exam. To address this issue, this project will build statewide networks of college, middle school, and high school faculty who will offer workshops and provide continuing support during the academic year.

The networks will be set up in three different states (North Carolina, South Carolina, and Mississippi). College and university faculty will work directly with middle school and high school teachers in teaching and learning innovative and effective ways of introducing computing and computer programming, and in incorporating computational thinking into other disciplines. This project scales up a previous, successful collaborative project for students and teachers using the Alice 3D programming environment. The approach focuses on a strong core of fundamental programming concepts and problem-solving techniques in an object-oriented, interactive environment. The project's external evaluation will include the collection of qualitative and quantitative data on teacher instruction and students' enrollment and performance.

The project will train approximately 265 teachers directly, and provide support for master teachers to provide subsequent training for other teachers in their home districts. This project has the potential to increase the amount and effectiveness of instruction in object-oriented programming concepts and problem-solving to a large number of middle school and high school students. By training middle school and high school teachers in the proposed approach, and by providing support networks and building community, the project should be able to impact students throughout three states. Developed curricular materials will be stored in an online, searchable database to be freely available to all teachers. In making computing, computer science, programming, and computational thinking more attractive to middle school and high school students, the project team expects to encourage more students to major in STEM, and particularly computing, at the college level.

Stanford University will bring together faculty and researchers for a series of workshops to assess the potential for (1) expanding the number of researchers and specifically PhD students in Computer Science education research; and (2) establishing the legitimacy of computer science education research as a research discipline within CS departments at research-oriented schools. The first workshop will identify key research directions in computing education drawing from other STEM education disciplines. The second workshop will address the many concerns of how Computer Science education research can effectively be housed with CS departments.

Stanford University proposes to develop and evaluate a proof-of-concept online middle school course (with a teacher version as well) that adapts concepts from the Exploring Computer Science (ECS) curriculum, specifically algorithmic thinking and introductory programming. The project will:
(1) Design and deploy an online six-week "Foundations for Advancing Computational Thinking" (FACT) curriculum on Stanford University's instance of the open edX online platform. Aimed at 12 to 15 year-old learners, the curriculum borrows from the ECS Programming and Problem Solving units. It will be driven by short video lessons with in-video and stand-alone quizzes for formative and summative assessments, and programming activities.
(2) Pilot FACT in a Bay Area public middle school class.
(3) Empirically examine the efficacy of: (a) the curriculum for the development of computational competencies, preparation for future learning of computing, and changes in student perceptions of CS via assessments designed for these purposes, and (b) student attitudes towards and experiences with online learning, including online course features such as in-video quizzes and discussion forums.
(4) Create and pilot an appropriately enhanced version of the curriculum for teachers to effectively prepare them to facilitate FACT/ECS use in their classrooms.

In order for our nation to maintain its competitive edge, it is imperative that we increase the number of qualified STEM professionals and that those who do graduate from our programs enroll in high-quality courses, taught by engaging and knowledgeable faculty, about topics relevant in the 21st century. In order for higher education faculty to maintain their skills in this rapidly changing world, opportunities for professional development must be abundant, cost effective, and meaningful. This project represents a first step in achieving a goal of ubiquitous professional development for faculty who seek to improve their pedagogical skills or who seek to branch out into a new area of endeavor.

The Chautauqua professional development workshops for university faculty resulted from a successful program that operated for nearly two decades. Over the project duration, thousands of faculty received vital training in up-to-date research topics and educational practices. The Chautauqua series also played an important role for investigators who sought to broaden the impact from their funded projects. The original Chautauqua series ceased in 2007 due to various factors. Through this project, a model for a cost effective and sustainable 21st century version of the Chautauqua program is being developed. This model takes full advantage of internet-based conferencing and collaborating technologies, including MOOC-like approaches, to reduce cost and increase impact. The model for the second generation of Chautauqua short courses to be developed through this project will serve as a resource for the implementation of a comprehensive professional development strategy for higher education faculty into the future. Faculty who are from underrepresented groups or who are teaching in programs with significant enrollment of underrepresented students are being targeted for participation, meaning that this project could serve to broaden participation in STEM.

New Computer Science Faculty Teaching Workshop

This project is a collaboration between University of California-San Diego, Skidmore College, Stanford University, and Georgia Tech. The experienced PI team will develop a workshop for new computer science (CS) faculty, based on evidence-based instructional practices. Most other STEM disciplines have some form of teaching-specific workshop which addresses faculty teaching practices, informs new faculty about evidence-based instructional practices, and encourages educational research. This project will develop such a workshop model for computer science. In addition to developing the workshop itself and running it three times, the project team will form a Community of Practice among the workshop participants which will help them develop teaching competence, enhance their view of teaching as a scholarly activity, and encourage them to use evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching practices. The long term impact of this project can be substantial given the large number of students who will likely be taught over the teaching careers of the workshop participants. This project will be funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education through the IUSE program.


The workshop will itself be built around a number of teaching practices that have already been shown to be successful, thereby giving participants firsthand experience as "students" with practices they can later employ in their own classrooms. Workshop participants will work with underlying theory about ways that effective teaching can draw out student preconceptions, the importance to students of deep foundation knowledge and a conceptual framework, and the development of metacognitive abilities. The workshops will also draw on theory about growth and fixed mindsets and the development of expertise. The specific pedagogic practices utilized will be peer instruction and flipped classrooms, with additional use of live coding, pair programming, discussion of how best to use teaching assistants, and discussion of how technology can support learning. Online community support and the development by each participant of a teaching portfolio will help solidify use by participants of the practices they learn in the workshops. Project evaluation will be carried out by the Western Michigan University Center for Research on Instructional Change in Postsecondary Education. This will focus on the extent to which the project positively impacts the participants? teaching expertise, to what extent the in-person workshop and online community contribute to the development of a community of practice, and how participation helps moderate the barriers that often dissuade faculty from focusing on teaching.

Prior research studies have found that low spatial ability is a predictor of failure in several engineering disciplines. Furthermore, there is evidence that some students from underrepresented groups in engineering and computer science (e.g., women and African Americans and Hispanics), demonstrate statistically lower spatial abilities, but low spatial ability can be improved. Engineering students who have gone through interventions to enhance their spatial abilities have succeeded in great numbers in undergraduate engineering programs. While engineering and computer science are STEM disciplines that are often thought of as being related, it is still unknown whether spatial ability is also a factor in student success in computer science coursework. This project will explore whether spatial ability is a predictor of success in first-year college computing courses. If so, this project will study whether students with low spatial abilities can be trained to improve, and whether their performance in computing classes (and their retention) improves as a result. The short-term and long-term impacts of improving students' spatial abilities will be determined. This collaborative partnership includes faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Texas Woman's University, and the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.

Determining the 3D spatial skills components most important to succeed in introductory computing courses will enable the development of spatial skills interventions for computing students. The research team will determine the impact of spatial skills interventions on the performance and overall retention of computing students. In doing so, it will also explore whether providing spatial skills training also improves the experience of female and underrepresented minority students, thus increasing the likelihood that they will choose to take additional computing classes. This project will demonstrate a series of approaches that can improve students' spatial abilities. It is expected that the results of this work could be applied to other domains. For instance, many researchers within the algorithm visualization community have had limited successes with the creation and use of educational tools/visualizations. If there is a correlation between a student's low-spatial ability and the student's inability to learn from a particular algorithm visualization, this work will have provided this community with a means to improve the effectiveness and the impact of the tools/visualizations they are creating to improve student learning. Results of this project will be disseminated through conferences papers, workshops, and through a project's web site where all materials will be accessible to the public.