Coding Bazaar is a new student-centered on-site format held in the PBLabs. It is a place where students team up to tackle challenges in a fun and practical way, after they have learned the fundamentals of programming through self-study. This biweekly meetup allows us lecturers to connect and interact with students on an equal footing outside the traditional classroom setting. Students, on the other hand, get a chance to boost their programming knowledge by discussing various challenges collaboratively, without relying on computers. In today's world, where AI tools are ever-present, it's crucial to offer learning experiences that foster deep understanding with a clear conceptual focus. This shifts the focus away from simply creating learning products (e.g. project code) - which can easily be produced today - towards insights, approaches and critical thinking, the most important long-term goals of programming education.
Project-based learning with self-study preparation and one-to-one Progress Meetings
We teach various programming courses to more than 1400 life sciences students each year. In order to actively involve the students, we have been systematically transforming our courses into a project- and problem-oriented environment over the last few years. Students learn programming by solving practical projects in their subject area (e.g. life sciences) in Code Expert. In order to support different levels of prior knowledge, we provide students with preparatory material in the form of self-study modules (E.Tutorials, KITE Award winner project 2018).
This shift from teacher-centered to student-centered learning has changed traditional teaching structures and our roles as lecturers. For example, weekly lectures have been reduced and replaced by more flexible videos and online tutorials. At the same time, AI tools are being used more and more frequently by the students. In order to focus on students‘ understanding of concepts, we have replaced the TA-led exercise groups with regular one-to-one progress meetings including personal feedback. During these meetings, students demonstrate their conceptual understanding in a discussion and defend their project outcomes.
A new on-site event where we can interact directly with our students on a conceptual level
Our blended learning setup is proving to be very popular and effective, but is also increasingly moving away from on-site university structures towards self-study with a coaching component led by TAs. We therefore set out to create a new on-site event that would bring us lecturers back into direct contact with the students, and that would also meet the following requirements:
- highly interactive on-site event,
- collaborative and discussion-based, no frontal teaching, no exercise submissions,
- flexible learning space that can be quickly adapted,
- deepens and consolidates students‘ coding knowledge, taking into account different levels,
- scalable to large student groups of several hundred students,
- feasible with a small teaching team.
In order to meet these requirements, we have developed the so-called Coding Bazaar. We meet the students regularly (every 2 weeks) in the PBLabs. There we provide various market stalls with challenges on different further programming topics, where students can extend and deepen their knowledge. The students visit the booths in groups of 2 or 3 people and try to solve the challenges together. They do not write programs, the challenges are playful and focus on collaborative discussion and understanding. Each booth is supervised by a person from the teaching team (lecturer or TA). Groups with more than 100 participants are divided into several series after prior registration. In order to keep the number of supervising TAs to a minimum, hints for solving the challenges are provided via QR codes on request.
The interactive bazaar format is very popular with students and TAs
Over the last two years, we have introduced the Coding Bazaar in four of our project-based courses with 100 to 550 life science students and a CAS program for managers with 50 to 75 participants. The student groups actively participate in solving the challenges, as evidenced by lively discussions about programming concepts, approaches and algorithmic methods.
Students report that they particularly appreciate the collaborative, hands-on and playful learning as a welcome change from their more passive everyday lecture routine as well as learning programming concepts through self-study. The aim of the Bazaar Challenges is to transfer the concepts to new situations and to refine them without relying on external aids (AI-tools and programming environments). To foster discussion and conceptual thinking rather than pushing for the perfect solution, no solutions need to be submitted.
The availability of AI tools has shifted the focus of programming education
In the past, programming courses were mostly about learning how to write code. In future, the ability to read and analyze code quickly and to understand how programming is used in other subject specific areas (e.g. Life Sciences) will become more important. The new collaborative format of the Coding Bazaar plays a key role in our project-based approach by making new use of the time previously allocated to lectures and focusing on an immediate, face-to-face learning experience.
Course Description
- Name:
- Grundlagen der Informatik, Einsatz von Informatikmitteln, Anwendungsnahes Programmieren mit Python, Informatikgrundlagen für Humanmedizin, Introduciton to programming, Programming with Python.
- Description:
- Provides selected Computer Science concepts for interdisciplinary programming projects.
- Objective:
- Introduction to programming for Life Science departements.
- VVZ:
- 252-0866-00L, 252-0852-00L, 252-0839-00L, 252-0840-02L, 275-0001-00L, 273-0001-00L
- Department:
- D-INFK Service to D-HEST, D-BIOL, D-USYS, D-CHAB (Pharmaceutical Sciences)
- Level:
- Bachelor, CAS
- Size:
- 50-550 Students
