UDL in CPSC 203

Programming, Problem Solving, and Algorithms

Stephan König

stephan.koenig@ubc.ca

Skylight, UBC

Computer Science, UBC

Firas Moosvi

firas.moosvi@ubc.ca

Computer Science, UBC

CPSC 203 overview

• General service course for non-majors (mostly BSc, BA and BCom)
• Often second-ever programming course
• Started 2019W1, single section with increasing enrolment over the years, currently above 100 students

UDL goals

Implement for 2024W2:

• Open access website aligned with improved course structure and subtitled videos
• Scaffolding to local development environment
• Accessible slides
• Randomized question bank of enabling mastery learning
• Improved course projects

• Course Designer, Dr. Cinda Heeren, is a strong advocate of inclusive teaching practices and established an easily expandable framework including frequent testing.
• Minimize threats and distractions and reduce barriers to engagement by providing easily accessible compute platform.
• Mastery-oriented feedback using an online testing platform.

Website, improved course structure and subtitled videos

• Enhance accessibility and inclusivity of videos by adding automatically generated subtitles. Still evaluating tool for crowdsourcing (ClassTranscribe) subtitles.
• Increase support for flipped classroom model by:
  • Breaking existing recorded videos into small 4–12 mins chunks along the theoretical concepts.
  • Freeing time so the class can be interactive and demo-based (experiential learning).

Scaffolding to local development environment

• Setting up a working development environment on students’ machines poses a significant challenge.
• Provide a virtual online workspace using the online testing platform PrairieLearn.

• Workspace includes a popular code editor, description of exercises, and all necessary files, enabling students to start coding on day one and follow along in class.
• Creates buffer during the first 5-6 weeks of the course to set up a working installation on students’ machines, lowering the barrier for novices with support from teaching staff.

Accessible slides

Support of Python on slides and website

• Use new web technologies to run code in browser. Another avenue to increase accessibility and interactive learning from day one.
• Also uses web technologies making the content screen reader compatible.
• Semantic HTML focuses on the meaning of the content, increasing the meaning of the styling. Styling can easily be changed globally for entire set of slides.

Randomized question bank

• Randomized question bane enables practice, good question design, and mastery learning.
• Previous CPSC 203 undergraduate teaching assistant, Minh Anh Nguyen, working on randomized questions (Example.

Improved course projects

• Improved instructions to make the starting point for take-home projects for students straightforward
• More robust code base so students don’t get stuck at the beginning
• More opportunities for students to demonstrate mastery by tackling some more challenging optional parts

Thank you!

Acknowledgements

Dr. Cinda Heeren for a fantastic course framework.

Minh Anh Nguyen for bringing her TA experience into question and project design.

Contact us

stephan.koenig@ubc.ca

firas.moosvi@ubc.ca

Find out more about the online testing platform PrairieLearn and the Computer-Based Testing Facility on UBCV campus.