Research

My research interests focus on computer science education.

Grants, Awards, and Fellowships

Northeastern Center for Inclusive Computing: Implementation Award, 2020

• PI: Craig Partridge
• $600,000, 5-year award focused on increasing inclusion and diversity
• Primary role: managing GRAs, curriculum design, research plan, data collection and analysis
• Focused on improving retention and diversity, emphasis on the involvement of women in CS

A Digital Learning Initiative to Enhance Instruction in Computer Science, 2020

• Albert Lionelle, Shrideep Pallickara, and Laura Moreno Cubillos
• $19,973, Award by CSU Digital Learning Initiative - Vice President’s Office Funded Grants
• Multi-year grant (pre-covid 2020 to 2022)
• Online course development, video development, CS Info-Spaces
• Pilot project on collaborative quizzing and testing application connected to booster course research

Pilot Project – Computer Science Undergraduate Mentoring Position Targeting First Generation Students, 2019

• Albert Lionelle and Debbie Bartlett
• $2,000, Award by CSU Institutional Diversity Strategic Plan
• Funded undergraduate to help expand the Women in Computing Mentoring program to include all first-generation students
• Renamed program CS[u] Mentoring – doubled number of participants, including both first generation and women involvement

Learning Analytics Fellow – Center for the Analytics of Learning & Teaching, 2019

• Center focused on learning analytics and data science across education at the university.
• Focused on quiz data and data analysis of current Computer Science courses
• $2,000, Funded undergraduate research opportunities in developing quiz banks and outcome mapping across courses

Publications

Visit my Google Scholar profile for my publications.

Invited Lectures and Presentations

Opening Keynote: Lionelle, Albert, “We are Biased: Algorithms and Applications That Are Biasing Modern Education”, 2021 Virtual Conference – a collaboration of eLearning Consortium of Colorado, Northwestern Managers of Educational Technology, and Northwestern eLearn. April 7-9, 2021

Panelist: Hizer, Helga, Lionelle, Albert, Montealegre, Diana & Novak, Kae. “Technology, Dominant Culture & Social Justice”, eLearning Consortium of Colorado (eLCC). April 15-17, 2020

Research Committees and Selected Projects

CSedU (Computer Science Education Group), 2019 - Current

• Founding member of the research group at CSU – Founded January 2019
• Comprised of faculty from multiple disciplines and colleges (Software Engineering, Computer Vision, Data Science, Human Computer Interaction, Education, Mathematics, and Systems Engineering), graduate students, staff (advisors), and undergraduate students
• Primary research areas are curriculum design and student performance based on structure to enhance memory and recall, tools to assist and encourage student study behaviors, novel team grouping strategies for software engineering capstone improving retention and performance, student sense of belonging and interaction in VR environments compared to real world environments, using interactive systems as guided group discussion tutors in the classroom (part of NSF AI Institute for Student-AI Teaming via the Communicating with Computers group), student retention of under-represented groups through advising and curriculum redesigns.

Spiral Design of Courses, 2018 – Current

• Designed CS0 and CS1 using principles of memory and recall (spacing, interleaving, practiced recall, elaboration, and reflection)
• Involved massive redesign of CS approach, when topics were taught, and more.
• Included mapping learning outcomes to topic based tracking tools, giving insight on the per outcome/topic level for every student and performance.
• Improved CS 1 performance by 9%, Retention of women by 19.2% (and 9.2% overall)
• Improved CS 2 performance (following unmodified course) increasing review exam performance by 10.5% for students taught using spiral pedagogy compared to traditional, performance on all assignments and exams, and pass rate from 65% to 80%.
• Next Steps:
  • Developing educational tools and resources, including a book for the design
  • Looking at the design across courses and curriculum, and tracking topics for intervention

Teach Students How to Study: Improving Retention & Performance, 2019 – 2022

• Intervention developed after CS 2 review exam (first 2 weeks) to improve performance and reduce dropout rate.
• Those who did not participate only 59% passed, and those who participated passed with a 100% pass rate over three semesters.
• Focused on teaching techniques on spacing, interleaving, practiced recall, elaboration, and reflection
• Next Steps:
  • Uncovered major need for interactive and collaborative ‘quiz card’ application focused more on problem solving and programming.