CISE Seminar: Leo Porter; University of California, San Diego and Daniel Zingaro; University of Toronto, Mississauga

Effects of GenAI on the Computing Curriculum

The advent of GenAI necessitates changes to the CS curriculum and our courses. But what exactly should our learning outcomes and assessments look like now? Some impacts of GenAI are reasonably well-understood, such as their capacity to solve programming problems and their roles as tutors. We know much less about generative AI’s impact on student learning and how learning outcomes should change. This talk will begin with a brief summary of the main areas of ongoing research related to generative AI and early findings from incorporating GenAI into the introductory programming course at UC San Diego. Moving beyond introductory programming, we will then discuss how the CS Curriculum as a whole should be changing. We’ll finish by describing how the newly founded GenAI in CS Education Consortium provides support for faculty integrating GenAI into the CS curriculum and their courses.

Dr. Leo Porter is a Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at UC San Diego. He is best known for his research on the impact of Peer Instruction in computing courses, the development of the Basic Data Structures Concept Inventory, and integrating GenAI into the CS curriculum. He co-wrote the first book on integrating LLMs into the instruction of programming with Daniel Zingaro. He has received seven Best Paper Awards, an ICER Lasting Impact Award, the SIGCSE 50th Anniversary Top Ten Symposium Papers of All Time Award, and the Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award at UC San Diego. He co-Directs the GenAI in CS Education Consortium, aimed at helping faculty and institutions integrate GenAI into the CS Curriculum.

Dr. Daniel Zingaro is a Teaching Professor at the University of Toronto. He has taught introductory Python programming to thousands of students over the past 15 years and has written both no-GenAI and, with Leo Porter, GenAI Python textbooks. Dan has also authored and co-authored textbooks on algorithms and competitive programming and incorporates research-backed instruction into his writing. He is the recipient of the SIGCSE 50th Anniversary Top Ten Symposium Papers of All Time Award, an ICER Lasting Impact award, and the Computer Science Canada Excellence in Teaching Award. He co-Directs the GenAI in CS Education Consortium, aimed at helping faculty and institutions integrate GenAI into the CS Curriculum.

Faculty Host: Ayse Coskun

Student Host: Chae Woo Lim