Summer 2023 Workshop: CS Materials : A System to Improve the Structure and Content of Early CS Courses with Well Aligned, Learning Materials

Do you ever wonder how your course compares to courses taught by your peers or other instructors? Do you want to know whether you are giving your students a good coverage of what they should know? Do you want to find better materials to use in your course? Do you wonder how to distribute that great assignment you have designed across the country? The CS Materials is a system that can help you answer these questions. This day workshop will train you on on how to enter the materials of your class into the system, perform relevant material, coverage, and alignment analyses on your course and compare it to similar courses in the system. Come to the workshop with all the materials from one of your classes that are ready to be shared. You will get a much deeper understanding of your own course and how it stacks up against current national curriculum guidelines.

The following figures illustrate some of the capabilities of the CS Materials System; the radial visualization represents the ACM 2013 Curriculum guidelines' tree structure, with the root at the center, followed by Knowledge Areas (Level 1), Topics (level 2), Learning Outcomes (level 3).

course coverage aligning 2 courses
(Left) Coverage of a Data Structures Course, (Right) Aligning 2 Different Data Structures Courses,
aligning lect-assessment comparing materials
(Left) Aligning Lectures and Assignments in a Data Structures Course, (Right) Finding Materials Similar to Your Own Materials

Links for more information on CS Materials

We will conduct a CS Materials Training Workshops during the Summer of 2023. The 3 day workshop will enable participants to learn about current practices in course design, facilitate inputting their course into the CS Materials system, assess and analyse of their course, enable revisions to their course structure and content, study alignment between different course components, compare their course to similar courses, and possibly add more engaging materials. At the end of the workshop, participants will have a much better understanding of their course, with a revised version ready for delivery in Fall 23/Spring 24.

Dates, Location, Application

Location, Stipends

The workshops will be conducted at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Participants will be supported by stipends to cover their travel expenses and time.

Additional Information

If you have additional questions, feel free to reach out to us: