This is a reading group open to all faculty and grad students interested in computer science education. We meet every other week to discuss current research in the field.
Our meetings generally consist of a facilitated discussion of a paper or we may have a guest speaker. Either one of these things is then followed by open discussion. The papers we discuss are suggested by our group members so the topic coverage can be quite wide ranging. At the end of each year, we form working groups that carry ideas forward into January.
The meeting time for the 2026W1 semester (September to December 2026) is on Fridays from 12 to 1PM.
Current Schedule - 2026W1 (September to December 2026)¶
| Date | Presenter | Content |
|---|---|---|
| TBD | Firas Moosvi | MIT’s report on AI in Education |
Previous Schedule¶
2025W1 (September to December 2025)¶
| Date | Presenter | Content |
|---|---|---|
| Sept. 24, 2025 | Ava Peacock | Embedded ethics, a teaching methodology that introduces technical content in tandem with its ethical implications, has seen increased adoption at prominent universities and colleges over the last decade. Much of this is due to the fact that evidence exists for its effectiveness, especially when compared to standalone ethics courses that are typically optional in computer science programs. This talk will provide an overview of the concept of embedded ethics teaching, evidence and examples from existing initiatives, and existing resources for integrating it into your course. The presentation will last approximately 20 minutes, and will be followed by a Q&A period. The aim of presenting this information, in addition to providing a background on the topic, is to recruit instructors who would be willing to pilot one or multiple embedded ethics modules in their course(s). This will be crucial to forming the foundation for a UBC embedded ethics program. |
| Oct. 8, 2025 | Chris Kerslake | Griswold, W. G. (2024, March). Experience Report: Meet the Professor-A Large-Course Intervention for Increasing Rapport. InProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (pp. 415-421). Paper Related Podcast: [S4xE12: Meet the Professor (Teaching Practice Byte)] (https:// |
| Oct. 22, 2025 | Claude | Hou, I., Man, O., Hamilton, K., Muthusekaran, S., Johnykutty, J., Zadeh, L., & MacNeil, S. (2025, June). ‘All Roads Lead to ChatGPT’: How Generative AI is Eroding Social Interactions and Student Learning Communities. In Proceedings of the 30th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 (pp. 79-85). Paper |
| Nov. 5, 2025 | Jessica Wong | Sierra Wang, John Mitchell, and Chris Piech. 2024. A Large Scale RCT on Effective Error Messages in CS1. In Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (SIGCSE 2024). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1395–1401. Paper |
| Nov. 19, 2025 | Jeffrey Niu | Villegas Molina, I., Kim, J., Montalvo, A., Larragoitia, A., Lim, R. S., Guo, P. J., ... & Porter, L. (2025, February). Undergraduate Computing Tutors’ Perceptions of their Roles, Stressors, and Barriers to Effectiveness. In Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (pp. 1155-1161). Paper |
- Griswold, W. G. (2024). Experience Report: Meet the Professor - A Large-Course Intervention for Increasing Rapport. Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1, 415–421. 10.1145/3626252.3630844
- Hou, I., Man, O., Hamilton, K., Muthusekaran, S., Johnykutty, J., Zadeh, L., & MacNeil, S. (2025). ‘All Roads Lead to ChatGPT’: How Generative AI is Eroding Social Interactions and Student Learning Communities. Proceedings of the 30th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1, 79–85. 10.1145/3724363.3729024
- Wang, S., Mitchell, J., & Piech, C. (2024). A Large Scale RCT on Effective Error Messages in CS1. Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1, 1395–1401. 10.1145/3626252.3630764
- Villegas Molina, I., Kim, J., Montalvo, A., Larragoitia, A., Lim, R. S., Guo, P. J., Krause-Levy, S., & Porter, L. (2025). Undergraduate Computing Tutors’ Perceptions of their Roles, Stressors, and Barriers to Effectiveness. Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1, 1155–1161. 10.1145/3641554.3701784