Peer-Led Team Learning (Case Study 2)
Retaining Women through Collaborative Learning

Some institutions offer weekly two-hour workshops for students in introductory CS courses. Recruitment for these workshops targets women, minority students, and students from small rural high schools. Each workshop has five to eight students led by a well-trained undergraduate. The students work together on interesting group exercises, helping and learning from each other.
Susan Horwitz, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, provided the sample group exercise for PLTL in computer science. This exercise is designed to improve understanding of several concepts in Java programming:
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What happens when objects are declared and created, and when methods are called?
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What is the difference between copying from one variable to another when the variable is an object and when it is a primitive type?
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What is the difference between changing values of variables that are objects and changing values of variables that are primitive types?
Steps in the PLTL “Car Class” Activity
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Group members read through the Car class definition provided by their leader.
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Each student chooses one variable that she will represent.
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Students act out the role of their variable as specified in the code fragment to the right:
References
- For more sample exercises and information about the NSF-funded PLTL consortium in computer science, visit: http://pltlcs.org.
- Case Study Contributors: Susan B. Horwitz and Ann Q. Gates
View related research:View related case study: |
Authors: Lecia Barker and J. McGrath Cohoon