Case Study

Hoiming Lee

EDG 617
Pace University
New York City of New York

December 12, 2023

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Chapter 1 Case Study Purpose and Methodology.

The purpose of the case study is to understand how students are literate in a computer

science discipline and what makes them struggle or succeed in transitioning from general

academic literacy into the field of computer literacy [5]. The study is based on data collected

from class observation of students’ behavior and practices in a computer science classroom

and evidence identified from students’ formative assessments and a student survey. A

methodology, SOSO, for the case study is proposed. SOSO stands for survey, observe,

strategize, and observe. The study starts with a survey about students’ background in

computer literacy, then conducts the initial observation of how students are literate in the

scope of reading and writing computer science-specific text. The initial observation sets the

baseline for later analysis work. Then, the reading strategy is applied as part of instructional

pedagogy in the lesson. Follow-up follow-up observations are conducted. Comparing the

teaching journal, observation notes, and data collected from the initial and follow-up

observations of students’ literacy progress in the computer science discipline, an interference

conclusion is drawn to recommend future work to enhance the effectiveness of reading and

writing strategy.

It is imperative to support students in becoming literate in computing everywhere. The

inequitable access to the power of computing limits the socioeconomically disadvantageous

group of students who migrate upstream to the secondary discourse [23]. That is why the case

study matters and benefits the advocacy of critical literacy in redistributing power and

equilibrium in social justice [24].

Chapter 2 Course Overview & Classroom Literacy Learning Environment

The case study selects an AP Computer Science Principles class to be observed. The

class instructions use the BJC, a student-centered, self-guided learning curriculum [22].

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Students spend 85% of class time working on the computer programming assignment. The

teacher uses 15% of class time for agenda rundown or mini demos. The teacher does not

teach lessons in the class. The classroom setup is in a U shape, and every student is assigned

to a computer station. Each workbench hosts two computers, and two students sit in pairs.

Students start a typical class by finishing a DoNow. After the teacher briefs the agenda or

delivers a mini demo, students follow instructions in lab documents to do computer

programming. Students turn in their computer assignments before the end of class period.

The class period ends with an exit ticket. Teachers circulate the classroom to monitor

students’ progress and assist students if they have questions.

Chapter 3 Students Demographics with Survey Data

The class has 34 students. Their academic competence was demonstrated in their SHSAT

score when they enrolled in high school. They are proficient in ELN and Math. I started the

case study by administering a survey to the class [Appendix 1]. The survey aims to

understand the experience and background of students in computer literacy outside of

schools. The survey information is essential when analyzing the relevance of students’

outside-school literacy and the demand for in-school academic literacy that most students will

struggle with. Although the class is ELN and Math proficient, 32 out of 34 students do not

have a computer programming language. When asked about their purpose for taking the

course, 50% of students responded that it is to meet the school requirement, 30% to pass the

AP exam, and 20% of students do not have a clear purpose. The data provides valuable

information to support analyzing students’ motivation to learn computing language and how

they practice computer science disciplinary-specific literacy.

Socioeconomically, over half of them are from low-income families. That means some

need access to computer devices after school. At home, 30% of students have to share limited

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computing devices, and 8% do not need access. The survey data is essential to understand the

impact of inequitable access to computing and how students practice computer literacy.

From the perspective of digital literacy, 58% of students use TikTok, 44% of students use

Instagram, 73% of students use Discord, and less than 14% of students use Facebook or X.

This information is essential to understand how students take notes in computer science

disciplinary literacy. 67% of students do not take notes by writing or typing, versus %14

students still practice traditionally taking notes. That is one side of the story. Conversely,

82% of students use cell phones to take picture notes. The note-taking strategy to enhance

literacy learning is still preserved; it is the practice change from writing and typing to

clicking [25].

Half of the students have received information on computer literacy through the lens of

outside-school computer literacy. Still, only a tiny percentage of them get direct access to it

in their communities. Survey data indicates that 45% of students hear about at least one

computer language versus 55% of students who have not attended any computer language.

Only 12% of students have experience joining computer programming activities, while 88%

need access to such activities [Appendix 1].

Chapter 4 Initial Observation.

After students returned the Survey form, I conducted the first observation following a

instructional routine commonly practiced in the computer science discipline. I divide a word

into two parts. The first part is DoNow observation. I administered a DoNow through Google

Form, and each student responded to a prompt in a Google Form. The Google Form does not

have a collaboration feature; each student has to enter their answer individually. The prompt

asks students to provide an example of nested conditional, a typical programming structure. I

observed students researching the internet to look up examples and definitions; many students

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used the information from Wikipedia and copied the samples from Wikipedia as their

responses into the Google Form.

Students finished the DoNow quickly. They are a quick reader and quick writer. How

much do they understand? That is why I want to assess the depth of their understanding. I

asked one of the students how to transform his answer into a programming code. The student

shows a puzzled and hesitant expression. I went to ask three other students the same question,

and their reactions were similar. They were puzzled! That is an exciting finding because the

students practiced quick reading and writing skillfully and completed the assignment by

copying and pasting. They learn the computer science concept but need to make their

learning visible by doing it. Doing it means transforming learning to coding. Coding is a

demonstration of writing literacy in computer science.

The second part is Lab coding. Students follow a Lab workbook to complete a coding

exercise. The Lab workbook is written with detailed step-by-step instructions. If students

follow through, they should be able to complete the coding successfully. I observed that

many students can follow the steps and correctly type in the codes accordingly and without

error. In the meantime, I kept that students had a little discussion with peers or their lab

partners; they just focused on completing the coding before the class bell rang.

After the first observation, I reflected by reading about my daily teaching journey; I

wrote the word ‘copycat’ several times. I notice students learning computer literacy by

applying the academic content practices of quick reading and writing, skillfully researching

information online by matching similar phrases and wordings and reconstructing the

sentences as their answers. This is a very shallow learning in computer science. The computer

science discipline has the characteristics of precise definition and logical proof. It is okay to

connect pieces of information, but the amount of information must be logically in sequence

order; otherwise, the results will be different. The order of sequence is defined precisely in

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computer science. If the understanding of the definition is not in-depth enough, a student may

efficiently compose an out-of-sequence coding that turns out to be an incorrect result. That

makes literacy learning in computer science very distinct from ELN subjects. Computer

science calls them errors if the code composition is out of sequence. ELN subjects do not call

it an error. In computer science, the entire coding composition becomes useless if there is an

error.

Chapter 5 Practice Read Carefully Strategy

To address students' struggle and deficiency in learning computer science literacy, I

choose to carefully integrate computer science-specific Reading and view instructional

pedagogy strategies, including Shared Reading, Close Reading, and Short Videos, to explore

if the system will improve students' literacy skills in computer science.

Integrating Shared Reading and Talking strategies ([3], p.53) is an effective way to connect

information. Students used to talk in their own language outside school. When they are held

accountable for academic talk, that means disciplinary dialogue; many students struggle with

that. In the initial observation, I witnessed students struggle to explain how a segment of code

works. Computer science-specific shared Reading is a powerful tool, and it requires teachers

to be very skillful in subject content to demonstrate narration skills to students [17]. I use

EdPuzzle to record a short video of me narrating a selected code segment. The short video is

less than one minute; every student watches the video on the computer. Watching my 1-

minute short video is part of the instructional routine ([3], Chapter 6). To encourage students

to talk, I implemented a pair programming methodology in two paired students; one takes the

driver role, and the other takes the navigator role. They switch their roles every 15 minutes.

The navigator narrates what and how to code, and the driver follows the navigator's

instructions to compose the code. In other words, the navigator talks, and the driver does.

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 Close Reading in the Computer Science discipline has specific practice methods ([3],

p.56). As discussed in the initial observation, students need help explaining how a code

segment works. Computer science text is expressed in the form of programming. Reading a

code is different from reading a history book; there is a code debugging tool we can use.

Every computer programming environment has debugging tool. The device takes the learner

step by step, going through each line of code, and learners visually and textually perceive the

understanding of the code concept before moving on to the following line. In this way,

learners build up the logic of composing lines of code in the proper sequence order.

The following lessons repeatedly implement shared reading and Close reading computer

science-specific strategies [4]. The next session reviews some of the results.

Chapter 6 Followup Observations.

When the pair programming and my short video work together, I can hear students

talking much more frequently in the follow-up observations, and most importantly, they use

the computer science vocabulary to demonstrate accountable talk in a computer science-

specific way, which becomes their daily practice. When I say switch your role, the paired

students move to the other’s seat. Compared to the initial observation, students are on task

narrating or typing the code on the computer. There was no downtime for students to be off

task. Lab partners keep each other busy with many more questions and clarifications. The

situation sounds and looks different from the initial observation. Students need two to three

follow-up lessons to adjust to pair programming. When students are composing their code, I

stop by and ask them to walk me through it. They turn on the debugging tool and start

narrating each code line. Even though they were stuck, both lab partners discussed and

pointed to the code for correction with a growth mindset [26].

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 So far, silent reading or reading alone is ineffective for students to literate in computer

science. The teacher uses video to demonstrate how narrating with computer science

vocabulary, a debugging tool for close reading, and creating space for collaboration and

discussion through pair programming shows a promising direction in computer science

pedagogy.

Chapter 7 Conclusion and Future Work

The SOSO methodology provides a simple process to implement an integrated approach

for learning disciplinary-specific literacy. The student survey is the key to setting the

procedure. The data from the student survey guides the selection of strategies in the

integrated approach. The initial observation set the baseline for comparison, and the follow-

up observations provide feedback to support the theory of disciplinary literacy, digital

literacy, and multimodal literacy [6]. The selection of strategies needs to consider the change

in student demographics if the methodology is to be implemented in other classes.

For future work, student surveys can be structured and developed through the lens of

different literacy perspectives, such as disciplinary-specific, digital, multimodal, and critical

literacy—a mixed and match of each strategy to the survey data. We also need to develop a

post-observation student survey to understand the effectiveness from students’ point of view.

Appendix 2.0 and Appendix 2.1 provide a contract on the depth of students' responses to

specific computer science questions before and after the strategy implementation. The

contrast proves that students use more computer science vocabulary in their responses after

the strategy implementation, which is a good sign for the effectiveness of the SOSO

methodology.

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Appendix 1 Student Survey

Survey questions: Students Students Reply Students Note: Rationale why ask the
Reply Reply questions.. for understand and set
a baseline…
How much computer No Learned middle Learned in Activation Background
language programming experience at school: 1 summer knowledge; Making connection of
experience do you have all: 32 camp: 1 background information; In
before? analogy, similar to ELN, but CLN??
What is the purpose of Passing the It is School I don’t know: Challenge Goal Setting; Growth
taking this course, the AP AP exam: 10 requirement: 18 5 Mindset; Motivation
Computer Science
Principles?
What computer Python: 10 Scratch: 5 Don’t know Outside school literacy
programming language have any: 19
you heard before?
Do you have access to Yes: 29 No: 3 Access to text set.
computer use at home?
Is the computer at home for My own use Sharing with Access to text set.
your own to use, or sharing computer: 19 others: 10
the use of computer devices
with siblings or people living
together with you?
What social media do you Tiktok: 20 Facebook: 5 None: 0 Multimodal literacy; outside
use everyday? Instagram: 15 Twitter(X): 5 school literacy
Discord: 25

Do you use cellphone to Yes: 28 No: 5 Writing Note taking

take picture notes?
Do you have a notebook or Yes: 5 No: 23 May be: 6 Writing: Note taking
journal to take handwriting
notes for this class?
What computer science Girls Can TechCode: 1 AI Club: 1 Outside school literacy
clubs do you join after Code: 2 None: 30
school? BlockChain Club:
1

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Appendix 2.0 Student Formative Assessment Artifact before strategy implementation.

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Appendix 2.1 Student Formative Assessment Artifact after strategy implementation.

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