We are deeply saddened to hear of Brett Becker‘s tragic passing. Brett has been a regular speaker, supporter and attendee at SIGCSE journal club since we started in 2020 and we’ve have often discussed Brett’s papers at SIGCSE journal club. We’d planned to discuss another one of Brett’s papers at our October meetup but we’ve postponed that to a later date, in light of his passing.

Journal club is taking a break for August, we’ll be back in September for the United Kingdom & Ireland Computing Education Research conference (UKICER.com), 5th & 6th of September in Manchester.

Many employers struggle to recruit and retain software engineers with the skills needed to contribute to the modern workplace. What do employers and educators need to do to address this wicked problem? Join us to discuss the broken pipeline problem and its potential solutions in cybersecurity and beyond on Monday 1st July at 2pm BST.

Teamwork makes the dream work, or so the cliché goes. So how do you assess students ability to work together towards shared goals? Teaching students to collaborate in teams (agile or otherwise) is notoriously problematic. Dream work can rapidly descend into a nightmare struggle to motivate the free-riders while restraining the self-appointed dictators. Who gets the credit for what? What did the team agree on exactly?

Employers often love academic group projects while students often loathe them. How can Agile group projects be used to develop students skills, both hard technical skills and softer people skills?

Some competencies in software engineering are either difficult to teach and/or hard to measure, especially in a purely academic environment. Professional competencies in software engineering are often easier to learn in the workplace, rather than taught in a University lab, workshop or lecture theatre. What evidence can students provide of the professional competencies they develop while employed in a, workplace?

How can we increase participation of women in computing? How can we recruit and retain more women to study computing? Curricula are an obvious place to start. Understanding student motivations for their learning choices can help educators develop more effective programs of study.

“ See one, do one, teach one ” is a popular technique for teaching surgery to medical students.

Rather than meeting online in January, we’ll be meeting in person. So join us at Durham University for the annual Computing Education Practice (CEP) conference which takes place on Friday 5th January, with a pre-conference dinner in the evening of Thursday 4th January. Thanks to our program chair Jane Waite, general chair Ryan Crosby and program committee for organising this event.

How good is generative AI at passing exams? What does this tell us about how we could design better assessments? Join us on Monday 4th December at 2pm GMT (UTC) to discuss a paper on this by Joyce Mahon, Brian Mac Namee and Brett Becker at University College Dublin published at UKICER earlier this year.

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances. And one teacher in their time plays many parts. As students watch academic actors enter and exit their lecture theatres on University campuses around the world, what role can drama play in their teaching and learning? How can theatre and storytelling facilitate students understanding of whatever is they are supposed to be learning?