Encouraging System for Teaching Assistants to Advise Students during Programming Exercises

Abstract

Computer programming courses form a basic field of study for both students who major in Computer Sciences and those studying a wide range of other sciences. However, such courses present difficulties for certain students. To overcome these issues, many universities have introduced teaching assistant (TA) programs to support students’ learning. However, TAs may not be able to effectively identify students having difficulties in class. Consequently, we designed a support system that enables TAs to better understand students’ learning performance during programming classes. The system employs head-mounted displays, which provide TAs with a direct visual representation of students’ current and historical class performances, enabling them to determine which students (if any) are facing difficulty and provide them with extra support.