2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Teaching a new programming language to computer science students is challenging, time consuming, and fraught with error. Students face many challenges while attempting to learn a new language. Succeeding in this topic requires students to quickly achieve in application, analysis, and evaluation.
The typical approach to explanation and demonstration of a new programming language is limited - it often involves students simply viewing an instructor lecturing on the topic; most often, application of these concepts has students independently completing assignments, which opens an opportunity for disconnect between explanation and application. In addition to this challenge, setting up coding environments is difficult - it can be time consuming and confusing. The process of saving and running program files can be equally challenging.

Allowing students the opportunity to quickly learn coding concepts, apply them, and gain confidence in their ability could allow them to defer environment setup to a later date, and enable students to master introductory programming concepts more quickly.

Colaboratory (often referred to as "Colab") is a service offered by Google that allows students to modify and run Jupyter Notebooks in a zero configuration, ready-out-of-the-box environment. Because of its ease of getting started, this environment can provide interactive instructional and evaluation activities for students. This tool can intersperse instruction & explanation with real, executable code - all within a single artifact. This allows students to write Python code and see results through a browser almost instantly. No setup or configuration is required.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the efficacy of providing interactive instructional resources in Colab as part of an introductory programming course, using worked examples and try-modify-create pedagogical approaches. Participants in the study were recruited through LinkedIn and Twitter; they were randomly assigned to a control group (traditional lecture / video) or an experimental group (instruction offered through Colab). Student performance was evaluated through quizzes and assignments.