Parsons Problems give students practice with constructing solutions by selecting and dragging code blocks into the right order with the correct indention. They can also have extra blocks, called distractors, that are not needed in a correct solution.

This project offers extra help sessions, near-peer role models, exposure to a college campus, and a community of learners.

We have offered this project for over 5 years at Georgia Tech. An alumni survey showed that 63% of the alumni who are in college are majoring in computing. Of those still in high school, 62% plan to major in computing. In addition, 24% of the survey respondents said that being in the program changed their choice of major to computing.

Our research team at Georgia Tech has been creating ebooks for students and teachers to help them learn the programming and data parts of the CS Principles course. Teachers who do more of the interactive activities in the ebook have a higher confidence in their ability to teach the material.

My husband and I are known for our work on Media Computation which is an approach to teaching introductory computing concepts by having students write programs to manipulate media.