Popular achievements in CS 222: Fall 2019 edition

I'd planned to write this post each spring, after completing an academic year. However, I'm not scheduled to teach CS 222 next semester, so I decided to report on the last two semesters now. As discussed in my previous post, one of the assessible items in CS 222 (Advanced Programming) is something we call achievements. Achievements are designed to encourage student’s independent exploration of relevant course topics they choose from a provided list. Each student must complete a certain quantity of achievements if they expect to receive an A for the course, and reduced quantities for lower grades.

Originally, I set the threshold for an A at four achievements. To be more learner-centered, starting with the fall 2018 semester, I had the students collectively negotiate the threshold with me. Depending on the semester, it has been three to five achievements for the A level.

The list of available achievements has remained the same and is detailed in my original CS 222 achievements post, with the addition of Learning to Learn, introduced for fall 2018, and discussed in my spring 2019 post.

The following table presents statistics from the most recent six semesters I’ve taught the course, along with a couple of summary columns. I find it interesting to look through the table to see what is popular (and what is not). For example, considering all semesters, the Diversity Seeker and Reflective Practitioner achievements have clearly been the most popular. Coming in next are the Crystallizer and Studious achievements. These four remain in the same relationship as last spring, although Crystallizer has gained slightly in popularity. Looking at the last year, the top three remain the same, but Studious has dropped down the list, and is replaced by Rereader. Looking at individual semesters, the Fair-minded, Judge, and Learning to Learn achievements have also been very popular. The recently-added Learning to Learn achievement has proven to be quite popular, ranking fifth during the last year.



Five achievements (Campus Leader, Didact, Filmmaker, Jammer, and Open Source Contributor) have Continued to be the least popular. I have chosen to leave these as options for students with interest or skill in one of those areas, but will likely drop (some of) them the next time I teach the course. Note that the Third-part Librarian achievement was removed from the available options after the summer 2016 semester.

Lastly, I’ve found the number of achievements students choose to complete interesting. While a great many students do complete the required quantity, the majority do not. As shown in the table, the average for all semesters is just over three completed achievements per student. Due to a one-submission-per-week limitation, and their poor planning, some students simply run out of time to get all of them submitted. The slight increase for the spring 2019 semester is likely due to the threshold for an A being at five, as compared to four for other semesters. However the fall 2019 threshold was four, and resulted in nearly the same level of submissions. The threshold for the Summer 2019 semester was three, with all students meeting it.

I believe the achievement system continues to meet its intended purpose within the course. I do not observe any substantial changes in popularity as reported in my original report and last spring's report. My colleague, Paul Gestwicki, is teaching the course in the spring, and has chosen to make some adjustments to the achievement options, which I believe will be a positive change. You can read about his preparation for CS 222 in his blog post.