E3: Evaluating Code Reading Skills in Intro CS with Ibrahim Albluwi

Ibrahim Albluwi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Princess Sumaya University for Technology in Jordan. In this episode, we talk about his new ACM TOCE paper, "Varying Program Input to Assess Code Reading Skills," and the question of how we can evaluate code readability and comprehension in intro CS.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The importance of code reading skills
• Understanding code: tracing vs. explanation
• Variable Input Tracing: a new approach
• Teaching code reading skills
• The role of AI in code reading
• Debugging and its importance

About the guest

Ibrahim is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Princess Sumaya University for Technology in Amman, Jordan. His research interests focus on computer science education. He is primarily interested in improving our understanding of how to effectively teach and assess programming, algorithms, data structures, and problem-solving.

Where to find Ibrahim

Website: https://ialbluwi.github.io/index.html 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ibrahim-albluwi-3898b1b/ 

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RQxMuuv3_W4C&hl=en 

Papers referenced:

Varying Program Input to Assess Code Reading Skills https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3737884

Other referenced:

Vibe Coding Among CS Students https://medium.com/@dannyprol/vibe-coding-among-cs-students-68a8861df436 

Code Reading Club: https://codereading.club/ 

About the podcast

You can watch the full episode on Youtube. Or listen to it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your podcast app of choice. Thanks for listening!

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