HCI Research in CS Rectiations

Over the past seven months I have been doing research into what the teaching experience is like for TAs in STEM at CMU, mostly with a focus on computer science courses. This has involved over 40 hours of observations of recitations taught by students. Although my research is still in its early stages, I have learned a few things that might be of interest to those of you attending these seminars.

To put things in context, I'm a third year PhD student in the HCII. I have a background in psychology, but have been implementing anthropological and design-based methods to study potential technological innovations that would be of use to novice instructors in general, and TAs in particular.

Some of the things I'll talk about:

• What the literature tells us about "best practices" for teaching
• Some of the roadblocks for teaching assistants
• Interesting cultural phenomena in the classroom
• Potential technological artifacts that might be of use to TAs
• The kinds of research methods I use

My hope is that this seminar will be both an interesting look into HCI research as well as an opportunity for teaching assistants to contribute their perspectives to the work while it is still in its early development.

If you expect to attend, although not required, it would be wonderful if you could fill out this survey. It will enable the presenter to better tune the presentation to the audience: