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Education Innovation

Our Education Innovation research area includes publications on online learning at scale, educational technology (which is any technology that supports teaching and learning), curriculum and programming tools for computer science education, diversity and broadening participation in the computer science hiring and onboarding process at Google.

Recent Publications

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Leveraging Virtual Reality to Enhance Diversity and Inclusion training at Google
Elie Bursztein
Karla Brown
Patrick Gage Kelley
Leonie Sanderson
2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM
Preview abstract Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a promising educational training method, offering a more engaging and immersive experience than traditional approaches. In this case study, we explore its effectiveness for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training, with a focus on how VR can help participants better understand and appreciate different perspectives. We describe the design and development of a VR training application that aims to raise awareness about unconscious biases and promote more inclusive behaviors in the workplace. We report initial findings based on the feedback of Google employees who took our training and found that VR appears to be an effective way to enhance DEI training. In particular, participants reported that VR training helped them better recognize biases and how to effectively respond to them. However, our findings also highlight some challenges with VR-based DEI training, which we discuss in terms of future research directions. View details
BlinkBoard: Guiding and Monitoring Circuit Assembly for Synchronous and Remote Physical Computing Education
Andrea Bianchi
Artem Dementyev
Kongpyung Moon
Seungwoo Je
HardwareX (2024)
Preview abstract Motivated by the necessity of guiding and monitoring students' progress in real-time when assembling circuits during in-class activities we propose BlinkBoard, an augmented breadboard to enhance offline as well as online physical computing classes. BlinkBoard uses LEDs placed on each row of the breadboard to guide, via four blinking patterns, how to place and connect components and wires. It also uses a set of Input/Output pins to sense voltage levels at user-specified rows or to generate voltage output. Our hardware uses an open JSON protocol of commands and responses that can be integrated with a graphical application hosted on a computer that ensures bidirectional communication between each of the students' BreadBoard and the instructor's dashboard and slides. The hardware is affordable and simple, partially due to a customized circuit configured via a hardware description language that handles the LEDs' patterns with minimal load on the Arduino micro-controller. Finally, we briefly show how this hardware made its way to a workshop with high-school students and an undergraduate class in a design department. View details
Growing an Inclusive Community of K-12 CS Education Researchers
Sloan Davis
Monica McGill
Proceedings of 54th Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE’23), ACM (2023)
Preview abstract A recent study found that there is a litany of unmet needs that are serving as barriers for the CS education research community to grow in depth and breadth, including ensuring that the community is representative of the teachers and students that are studied. Cultivating a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible CSEd research community requires simultaneous bottom-up and top-down alignment on practice standards, professional development, and wellbeing for all constituents that is rooted in politicized trust and collective impact. For this position paper, we engaged in an expository writing process using a confirmatory and elucidating research design to contextualize quantitative and qualitative data reported from our previous study within related work. Our results indicate that there is a variety of researcher-centered, researcher-adjacent, and research-centered barriers in CS education that affect researchers’ practice, and personal and professional identities. These results were validated by findings from research in other fields, such as education, psychology, and organizational change. These findings highlight the need for intentional changes to be made, both top-down and bottom-up, to sustain and grow the CS education research community in a way that equitably supports the evolving needs of a diverse set of students as well as the diverse set of researchers who study interventions. View details
Business Intelligence Career Master Plan
Danny Moncada
Eduardo Chavez
Packt (2023) (to appear)
Preview abstract Navigating the challenging path of a business intelligence career requires considering individual expertise, interest, and skills. This book explores key skills like data modeling, visualization, and warehousing, alongside organizational structures, technology stacks, coursework, certifications, and interview advice, thus enabling readers to make informed decisions about their BI journey. The book will begin by assessing the different roles of BI and provide an in-depth walkthrough of the roadmap while helping you match your skills and career with the tech stack in business intelligence. The book will then teach you to build taxonomy and a data story using visualization types. You would be learning the fundamentals of programming, frontend development, backend development, software development lifecycle, and project management to give you a broad-level view of the end-to-end BI process. This book will also help you to identify what subjects and areas are crucial to study and what does not add much value to your BI skill set. You would be able to find the right job fit and build a business problem and data solutions matrix. By the end of this book, you would be able to make an informed, well-thought-out decision on which of the myriad paths to choose in your business intelligence journey. View details
Equitable student persistence in computing research through distributed career mentorship
Sloan Davis
Audrey Rorrer
Cori Grainger
Sepi Hejazi Moghadam
Proceedings of 54th Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE’23), ACM (2023)
Preview abstract Google’s CS Research Mentorship Program (CSRMP) cultivates pursuit and persistence in the computing research trajectory for students from historically marginalized groups through virtual career mentorship from industry professionals, a peer community, and just-in-time resources. Since 2018, 287 Google mentors have engaged 1,018 students from 247 institutions in the U.S. and Canada. The program employs socioemotional support and advocacy to navigate systemic barriers by validating students’ intersectional identities in order to improve outcomes in core constructs for students: self-efficacy, sense of belonging, research skills, motivation to pursue graduate school and research careers, and intersectional capital. Evaluation outcomes from 400 matched respondents (68% response rate) indicate that CSRMP affects positive, statistically significant change in those constructs that largely persists across demographic subgroups. 80% aim to pursue computing research careers, and significantly fewer students are undecided about their future career. We were also able to identify disaggregated learnings: Black, Indigenous, and Latinx students are significantly less likely to submit to a research conference, and students from Historically Marginalized Groups (defined within) are significantly less likely to apply to a CS graduate program. We discuss key design elements of the program, how the findings are informing future iterations, and the potential for the model to scale. View details
Ars gratia retium: Understanding How Artificial Neural Networks Learn To Emulate Art
Christoph Best
Algorithmic and Aesthetic Literacy: Emerging Transdisciplinary Explorations for the Digital Age, Verlag Barbara Budrich, Stauffenbergstr. 7 51379 Leverkusen Germany (2021)
Preview abstract Chapter of a book "Algorithmic and Aesthetic Literacy Matter" by Lydia Schulze Heuling (Bergen, Norway) and Christian Fink (Flensburg, Germany). Discusses the process of generating art through artificial neural networks on a high level with an intended audience of teachers and teacher-training institutions. The context is the connection between algorithmic and aesthetic literacy. Contains a high-level introduction of artificial neural networks with some historical perspective, an exposition of the relationship of computer algorithms and aesthetic expression especially where used in teaching programming, and an overview of DeepDream and Generative Neural Networks with some examples. It ends with a discussion of uses of generative neural networks as artistic tools and their perspective in education. View details

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