WORKSHOP PROPOSAL FOR OOPSLA 1997
We propose a full-day workshop of presentations and collaborative sessions
to study and discuss:
RESOURCES FOR EARLY OBJECT DESIGN EDUCATION
We wish to organize this workshop to follow on from the very successful
workshop we organized at OOPSLA 1996 on "Teaching and Learning Object Design
in the First Year". The earlier workshop resulted in agreement that object
design should be emphasised to a greater extent in the early stages of
computer science education, and a number of convincing approaches were
presented. However, in the 1996 workshop there was also a widespread call
for resources to enable teachers to emphasize object design more effectively.
This new 1997 workshop will address the need for a resource base for emphasising
object design in the early years. In the call for participation, we will
suggest a category structure for the resources we feel are most important,
such as case studies, sample exercises, and so on. Prospective participants
will be invited to submit a sample resource for presentation at the morning
session of the workshop. With these as a focus we will spend the afternoon
in discussion. We will first discuss the resources presented in the morning,
and in general address how best to evaluate and categorize these kinds
of resources. Later we will address how to facilitate sharing resources
on an ongoing basis -- for example, we will consider establishing a web
repository for early object design education resources. As results of the
workshop, we will prepare a report on the set of resources, useful in their
own right, and our discussion about them. We will then use these resources
to illustrate the workshop proposals on categorization, evaluation, and
how best to address longer term sharing. As in 1996, we hope to be able
to present an immediate report to the Educators Symposium. We will stay
true to the key principles of the earlier workshop by continuing to stress
design over implementation, explicitly avoiding language wars, and above
all working to help educators perform their role more successfully. We
will again specifically invite people from industry to contribute their
perspective.
1. PRIMARY WORKSHOP THEMES
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Object technology for undergraduate computer science education
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Support for educators involved in early teaching of object design
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Emphasis on design, rather than implementation
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Avoidance of programming language wars
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Involvement of industry and educators working together
2. DESCRIPTIONS OF THE PROBLEMS TO BE ADDRESSED
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Identifying the key kinds of resources that will be helpful to educators
in teaching early object design, e.g. determining which design patterns
are appropriate in the first year
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Establishing a structure for helpfully classifying resources
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Deciding on reasonable ways of evaluating resources
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Determining a way to coordinate resource sharing and evaluation on an on-going
basis
3. A PROPOSED AGENDA
We propose to follow a similar plan to the 1996 workshop, which worked
very successfully. Broadly, we will use the morning for specific presentations,
and with these presentations to focus us, we will use the afternoon for
discussion. Also as in 1996, we will split the morning presentations into
major presentations, to allow enough time for critical ideas, and brief
presentations, to allow everyone to outline their approach and hence facilitate
later discussion.
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AM: Introduction
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Presentations of Submitted Resources --
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4 major presentations: 20 minutes each 1.5 hours
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Break
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16 brief presentations: 5 minutes each 1.5 hours
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Lunch
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PM: Discussions:
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Resources presented in the morning 1 hour
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Evaluation and categorization of resources in general 1 hour
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Break
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Discussion of an ongoing plan for sharing resources 1 hour
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Conclusion
4. REFERENCES TO PAPERS, WORKSHOPS, AND FORUMS MOTIVATING THE WORKSHOP
Our view is that recently there has been an increasing acceptance of
OO as the paradigm of choice for introductory computer science courses.
However, interest has typically focussed on language and implementation
issues. In research and industry there have been important developments
in better understanding of object design, but these have not been directly
suitable as resources for educators at early levels. Some new approachs
have emerged, and we see our workshop as playing an important role in supporting
educators.
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Widespread interest in increasing OO emphasis in early Computer Science
education, but typical focus on languages issues, e.g.: See many papers
and panels in ACM/SIGCSE conferences 1995, 1996, and 1996, and regional
CS education conferences.
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Significant advances in OO design, but not directly suitable as resources
to educators at early stages, e.g.: "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable
Object-Oriented Software", Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and
John Vlissides, Addison-Wesley, 1995.
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New works aimed more at making it easier to understand key issues in OO
Design, e.g.: "Object-Oriented Design Heuristics", Arthur J. Riel, Addison-Wesley,
1996.
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Our Original Workshop: "Teaching and Learning Object Design in the First
Academic Year", OOPSLA 1996 Workshop, Organizers: Mercer, Biddle, Duvall,
Clancy, Cockburn [See report in conference addendum] Also, many of these
ideas have been discussed on CS1OBJ, an active mailing list for discussion
of issues concerning introductory computing courses and OOP, which was
created by Rick Mercer in 1992.
5. PROSPECTIVE CO-ORGANIZERS:
Rick Mercer
Robert Biddle
Penn State Berks
Victoria University of Wellington
Engineering and CS
School of Mathematical and Computing Sciences
PO Box 7009 PO Box 600 Reading, PA Wellington
19610-6009 USA
NEW ZEALAND
1-610-320-4845
64-4-471-5328
1-610-320-4857(fax)
64-4-495-5232(fax)
rhm1@psuvm.psu.edu
robert@comp.vuw.ac.nz
6. PRIMARY CONTACT: Rick Mercer