SCIENCE IS A PROCESS Janet Davis ’99, Computer Science Professor Grinnell College
J
anet Davis ’99 is using methods derived from physics to make her computer science classes most effective.
In her fifth year at Grinnell College, Davis teach-
es “workshop style”—a method borrowed from phys- ics—which means that students spend most of the class period not listening to a lecture, but rather work- ing in pairs on lab exercises. To prepare, students do an online reading before each class. In class, there is a brief discussion or Q&A before starting the lab. The feedback loop is closed the next day when students share their questions and reflections on the lab exer- cises. Sometimes Davis demonstrates how to solve a problem that students found especially challenging. “In computer science, it’s by building on the idea
that you often learn more from doing than from lis- tening,” says Davis, who received her Ph.D. in com-
puter science and engineering from University of Washington. “I can teach better if I am focused on what students have difficulty understanding.” Similarly, the Just-in-Time Teaching method
Davis utilizes in her upper-level classes, including her Human-Computer Interaction course, focuses on topics students need to discuss. Reading is com- pleted and warm-up exercises
are submitted to
Davis before class. “In preparing for class I’m not only thinking about the most important things I want students to get out of class, I’m also seeing what questions students want to discuss.” Davis, who presented a paper on applying the
Just-in-Time Teaching method in computer science courses at the 2009 ACM Annual Technical Sympo- sium on Computer Science Education, uses student feedback to guide the lesson. “Having this feedback on how students are under- standing the material really lets me choose a pedagogy for that particular class that I think is going to help them learn what they need to learn.”
In computer science, it’s by building on the idea that you often learn more from doing than from listening.
SPRING 2011 Har vey Mudd College 19
SARAH DELONG
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