{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,14]],"date-time":"2026-02-14T05:10:49Z","timestamp":1771045849172,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":26,"publisher":"Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2013,8,1]],"date-time":"2013-08-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1375315200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.acm.org\/publications\/policies\/copyright_policy#Background"}],"funder":[{"name":"Skidmore College Faculty Development Grant"},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000001","name":"National Science Foundation","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["1140636"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["1140636"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000001","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["dl.acm.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["ACM Trans. Comput. Educ."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2013,8]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Peer Instruction (PI) is an active learning pedagogical technique. PI lectures present students with a series of multiple-choice questions, which they respond to both individually and in groups. PI has been widely successful in the physical sciences and, recently, has been successfully adopted by computer science instructors in lower-division, introductory courses. In this work, we challenge readers to consider PI for their upper-division courses as well. We present a PI curriculum for two upper-division computer science courses: Computer Architecture and Theory of Computation. These courses exemplify several perceived challenges to the adoption of PI in upper-division courses, including: exploration of abstract ideas, development of high-level judgment of engineering design trade-offs, and exercising advanced mathematical sophistication. This work includes selected course materials illustrating how these challenges are overcome, learning gains results comparing these upper-division courses with previous lower-division results in the literature, student attitudinal survey results (N = 501), and pragmatic advice to prospective developers and adopters. We present three main findings. First, we find that these upper-division courses achieved student learning gains equivalent to those reported in successful lower-division computing courses. Second, we find that student feedback for each class was overwhelmingly positive, with 88% of students recommending PI for use in other computer science classes. Third, we find that instructors adopting the materials introduced here were able to replicate the outcomes of the instructors who developed the materials in terms of student learning gains and student feedback.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/2499947.2499949","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2013,8,20]],"date-time":"2013-08-20T14:07:13Z","timestamp":1377007633000},"page":"1-22","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":50,"title":["Can peer instruction be effective in upper-division computer science courses?"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"13","author":[{"given":"Cynthia Bailey","family":"Lee","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"University of California, San Diego, CA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Saturnino","family":"Garcia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of San Diego, San Diego, CA"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Leo","family":"Porter","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2013,8,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_1_1_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1119\/1.2121753"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_2_1","first-page":"9","article-title":"Clickers in the large classroom: Current research and best-practice tips. CBE-Life Sci","volume":"6","author":"Caldwell J. E.","year":"2007","journal-title":"Educ."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_3_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1536274.1536305"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_4_1","first-page":"2","article-title":"Teaching fundamentals of computing theory: A constructivist approach","volume":"4","author":"Ches\u00f1evar C. I.","year":"2004","journal-title":"J. Comput. Sci. Technol."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_5_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1119\/1.1374249"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_6_1","unstructured":"Cwsei - Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative at the University of British Columbia. 2012. Clicker resource guide. http:\/\/cwsei.ubc.ca\/resources\/clickers.htm.  Cwsei - Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative at the University of British Columbia. 2012. Clicker resource guide. http:\/\/cwsei.ubc.ca\/resources\/clickers.htm."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_7_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 31st Annual Frontiers in Education Conference. T4B-13-18","author":"Dimitriadis Y. 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Morgan-Kaufmann San Fransisco."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_15_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1999747.1999788"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_16_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2016911.2016923"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_17_1","unstructured":"Rodger S. 2009. JFLAP. Automata simulation software version 7.0. http:\/\/www.jflap.org.  Rodger S. 2009. JFLAP. Automata simulation software version 7.0. http:\/\/www.jflap.org."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_18_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2016911.2016931"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_19_1","unstructured":"Simon B. 2012. Getting started with peer instruction in computing: The details. http:\/\/cseweb.ucsd.edu\/&sim;bsimon\/PI\/.  Simon B. 2012. Getting started with peer instruction in computing: The details. http:\/\/cseweb.ucsd.edu\/&sim;bsimon\/PI\/."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_20_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/1734263.1734381"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_21_1","unstructured":"Sipser M. 2006. Introduction to the Theory of Computation 2nd Ed. 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