Teaching CS 1 with POGIL activities and roles

Abstract

The computer science community has started to experiment with process oriented guided inquiry learning, or POGIL, a learning approach that focuses on concept and process skills development by having students work together in organized teams. By emphasizing the learning process and group discussions, instructors who implement POGIL activities and roles in their classrooms may better address the different needs of their CS 1 students. After explaining how POGIL activities differ from other group activities, this paper elaborates on the importance of incorporating the learning cycle when developing a POGIL activity, so as to encourage rich group discussions and teamwork. It then describes the role of the instructor in a POGIL activity, and how POGIL roles need to be adapted for programming activities. It presents the results of using six POGIL activities in three CS 1 sections at a comprehensive liberal arts college, where the pass rate for female students increased compared to historical female pass rates for that class. Students who were introduced to recursion through a POGIL activity appear to have learned the material as well and retained the material better than students who learned recursion through a more traditional group activity.