Prof. Kristin Stephens-Martinez

 While going through my mid-semester survey this semester, I discovered an expert blind spot in myself. One variation of an expert blind spot is where an expert forgets to convey information that is vital for a novice to understand something. In my case, my survey reminded me how important it is to help students connect the dots by explaining why we are doing certain things in class. And one way to do that is by going over the class plan for the day. [ Also posted on Medium. ] So, I thought I’d write this post to remind you all of this little teaching practice. Perhaps you already do this, so here’s a reminder of why. Or, perhaps, you do not, and this is your invitation to try it since it does not take that much time to implement. The Practice: Class Plan for the Day The practice is where you start class by summarizing the plan for that day in a single slide. I do this practice with a slide called “Plan for the week/day” in my large (N = 80–120 students) elective data science ...

 Generative AI (GenAI) exploded into the academic teaching landscape in 2021, and we have been coping ever since. I’ve been quietly thinking about it since then. I’ve shared resources via my podcast’s social media feeds ( Twitter/X , Facebook , Patreon , YouTube ) and my LinkedIn . But I have not written about it here on my blog nor created a podcast episode focusing on it. [ Also posted on medium. ] I haven’t posted anything about my personal opinion because I wanted to provide an informed one, and I prefer to do my thinking quietly. However, it’s been long enough, and the landscape keeps changing, so I think it’s worth saying something. By posting something, I hope to try to move beyond the initial “what do we do?” conversations. These conversations are the ones I feel like I keep having. And my response/conversation now is often about the same terms and frameworks that I’ve been saying for a while, which often signals to me that it’s time to write a blog post. So here are my cu...

 ITiCSE 2021 is here! And this year, I’ve got a paper with Anshul Shah , Jonathan Liu , and Susan Rodger . The first two were undergraduate students. They are now both graduated and going on to grad school to study computer science education! Anshul is going to UCSD and Jonathan to Chicago . [Also posted on  medium .] The paper is “ The CS1 Reviewer App: Choose Your Own Adventure or Choose for Me! ” and is a tools paper. The paper introduces an app that Anshul originally developed with a partner in their Fall 2019 database class. We’ve been developing the app ever since with help from other undergraduate students through Duke’s summer CS+ program . Jonathan started helping last Fall. Below is a screenshot, the abstract, and a discussion of changes from the last six months since we submitted the paper. You can also check out the tool yourself at https://cs-reviewer.cs.duke.edu/ Abstract We present the CS1 Reviewer App — an online tool for an introductory Python course that all...

A term I made up and have been using for a while is "GPS syndrome." And it turns out that enough people have picked up this term that I feel like I need to post an "official" definition. I most commonly use the metaphor when talking about and with teaching assistants (TAs) that overhelp students. So this blog post is mostly from a google doc I wrote for new TAs for one of their training sessions. Definition " Scaffolding refers to a variety of instructional techniques used to move students progressively toward stronger understanding and, ultimately, greater independence in the learning process. The term itself offers the relevant descriptive metaphor: teachers provide successive levels of temporary support that help students reach higher levels of comprehension and skill acquisition that they would not be able to achieve without assistance. Like physical scaffolding, the supportive strategies are incrementally removed when they are no longer needed, and the...