2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In computer science and data science education, empowering students to become self-reliant learners with strong problem-solving skills is a key goal. This paper presents a pedagogical approach that harnesses the potential of peer-authored tutorials to foster students' ability to independently explore, understand, and effectively use a diverse set of tools for programming and data analysis. This teaching strategy has been applied across multiple classroom settings including a summer research program, undergraduate data science capstone courses, and a graduate special topics course on generative AI.

The key learning objective of this approach is helping students understand the importance of exploring and understanding tools as part of computer programming education. The specific tools can vary a lot depending on individual classroom learning goals. Some examples include “Setting up ChatGPT to help write code in Jupyter notebooks,” “Building and deploying your own Shiny App,” “Accessing the census API from python,” and “Downloading and installing Seaborn to make more robust figures.” Students are tasked with creating in-depth tool tutorials designed to help their peers learn to use the software effectively. Creating successful tutorials requires that student authors both understand the tools and effectively communicate their functionality to peers. The assignment culminates in the collaborative curation of a git repository that serves as a valuable resource for current and future students. Importantly, these new tutorials are shared under a Creative Commons license and provided as open educational resources (OER), allowing free access by learners worldwide.
This paper describes the structure of the tutorial development assignment and the steps involved, sharing insights on how to implement it successfully in different classroom settings. The methodology for assessing the assignment's effectiveness is discussed, including feedback from students and instructors. Additionally, the paper addresses the transferability of this approach to a broad range of programming and data science courses, highlighting its adaptability and the benefits of contributing to the OER ecosystem.

The outcomes of this multi-classroom case study offer valuable insights for educators seeking to enhance their students' tool fluency, self-directed learning capabilities, and collaboration skills while also contributing to OER. By emphasizing the importance of figuring out tools and the creation of comprehensive tutorials for peers, this pedagogical approach not only equips students with essential technical skills but also fosters a culture of mutual support and knowledge sharing in the classroom, contributing to a broader educational community.