Research
Current Projects
On diversity in CS (2013-present)
Looking at organizational, systemic change affecting diversity in computer science.
On adding social context to CS (2012-present)
I participated in an ITiCSE 2012 working group on 'Computing for Social Good', focusing on sharing CS1 assignments
with social context. Providing social context to CS1 is beneficial for many students -- and disproportionately so for underrepresented groups.
Past Projects
On CS1/2 assessments
I participated in an ITiCSE 2013 working group on collecting and categorizing CS1/2 multiple choice questions.
On using compare+contrast to teach CS2 (2012-2013)
This work was from my Master's thesis. We found that teaching variants of data structures side-by-side, and having students
compare and contrast the different data structures led to more student learning than if you present the different
data structures sequentially.
On supporting teaching assistants (2009-2011)
Most of this work came out of my undergraduate thesis, which was a qualitative evaluation of teaching assistant experiences in teaching CS at UBC.
On teaching digital logic (2008-2012)
How do we make digital logic labs interesting and engaging for students? I was part of a project to redevelop the lab curriculum for the digital logic course at UBC. During the process I surveyed students and TAs about the labs, to evaluate the curriculum changes.
- Effective Closed Labs in Early CS Courses: Lessons from Eight Terms of Action Research. Elizabeth Patitsas, Steve Wolfman. SIGCSE 2012. (Slides here)
- Revitalizing Labs: Lessons from 2.5 Years of Iterative
Development and Assessment of Digital Logic Labs. Elizabeth Patitsas,
Steven Wolfman, Meghan Allen. SIGCSE, March 2011. Also presented at the CWSEI End-of-Year Event, April 2011. (Poster here)
- Changes in CPSC 121: Toward a Coherent Picture of Computation. Elizabeth Patitsas, Kimberly Voll.
CWSEI End-of-Year Event, April 2010. Also presented at UBC Celebrate Learning, June 2010. (Poster here)
- Circuits and
Logic in the Lab. Elizabeth Patitsas, Kimberly Voll,
Mark Crowley, Steven Wolfman. Western Canadian Conference on Computing
Education, May 2010.
- Revising an Introductory
Computer Science Course: Exploratory Labs, Interactive Lectures, and Just-in-Time
Teaching. Gwen Echlin, Piam Kiarostami, Elizabeth Patitsas, Steven Wolfman. CWSEI End-of-Year Event, April 2009. (Poster here)
