1. Agile CS1 Labs: eXtreme Programming Practices in an Introductory Programming Course
Dawn McKinney, Julie Froeseth, Jason Robertson, Leo F. Denton, David Ensminger
School of Computer and Information Sciences,
University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL 36688
Our presentation is about our experience with XP practices in a freshman computer science foundation programming course. This course is the second semester of a 2-semester introductory problem-solving and programming course using Java.
The paper published in the proceedings is about our Fall 2003 experience. We implemented some changes in the Spring and will talk about both Fall and Spring including what we learned and will plan to do differently this coming Fall.
I’m Dawn McKinney, these are my two graduate students who have graduate research and teaching assistantships and had the responsibilities of acting as my lab assistants in the lab portion of this course. This is Julie Froseth and this is Jason Robertson. The other two authors are Leo Denton, a colleage of mine with whom I have written papers about affective objectives and David Ensminger, who has left our school for Chicago. David’s role was to assist with the qualitative assessment of our study.

2. University of South Alabama
State university
13,000 students
Computer and Information Sciences
Not part of a college
Three specializations
500 students
Masters Program
Computer Science
Information Systems
Information Technology
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

3. The Course Second semester of a 2-semester programming sequence
Introductory
Foundation for all three specializations
Closed Lab
Hands-on
Integrated with lecture
Taught by same instructor as lecture
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

4. Course Objectives Problem-solving Testing OOP GUI File I/O
Dynamic data structures
Communication
Commitment
Work-ethic
Adaptability
Honesty/integrity
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

5. Why XP? Flexibility Promotes team skills Relevance Communication
Cooperation
Work-ethic
Commitment
Adaptability
Relevance
One of our authors, Leo Denton, was introduced to XP at OOPSLA. I then started reading one of the early books on XP and the two of us comentored a team of senior women, the Datababes, exposing them to some of the XP practices.
Last summer, I then attended the XP conference in New Orleans where I became convinced that I would introduce XP to my Fall 2003 students.
I was fortunate to get these two grad students for my assistants and they became interested in XP and agreed to coauthor a paper about the experience.
Our focus was on team skills and using a real cutting edge methodology.
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

6. CS1 Agile Labs Weekly 75-minute closed lab Hands-on Laptop policy
Synergy of teams in same room
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

7. Teams 7 +/- 2 members per team Same room Selected names Shared info
Evaluated each member periodically
Team spirit
Jason, who along with Julie participated in both the Fall and Spring semesters and played the role of a project manager during the second semester experience, will now tell you some details about how these Agile labs were conducted.
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

8. Project Semester-long Same project all teams Same room
Shared info between
First semester – Nutrition Management
Second semester – Survey Builder
Customer driven
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

9. XP Practices Introduced Handouts Web sites Discussions Lectures
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

10. XP Practices Planning Game Small Releases Metaphor Simple Design
Continuous Integration
Sustainable Pace
Coding Standards
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

11. XP Practices Planning Game Small Releases User Stories
Estimated tasks on cards in minutes
Small Releases
2-3 lab period schedule
Demonstration after iteration cycle
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

12. XP Practices Metaphor Simple Design Instructor was the customer
Constant communication
Simple Design
Small Stories
Focus
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

13. XP Practices: Building Code
Continuous Integration
Team code stored on server
Sustainable Pace
No overtime
Enthusiasm to continue working
Too long of break between labs
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

14. XP Practices Coding Standards Taught in CS1
Uniform standards for each team’s code
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

15. XP Practices Pair programming Refactoring Collective code ownership
On-site customer
Stand-up meetings
Testing
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

16. XP Practices Pair Programming Highly emphasized Task cards
Estimates vs. actual times
Non-matching pairs
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

17. XP Practices Refactoring Collective code ownership Pairs …
Code on server
Pair programming
Testing
Focus on testing and quality
Highly valued in industry, often overlooked in classes
Student resistance on testing first; tested after coding
2nd semester: JUnit
Refactoring
Some (rotating of pairs and collective code ownership)
Not a focus:
Time limitations
Student inexperience; only try to get program working
Pair programming
Highly emphasized
Task cards
Driver/co-pilot
Times
Benefit: Estimates vs. actual times
Disadvantage: one quiet/inexperienced, other good programmer
Collective code ownership
Code on server
On-site customer
Focus on customer
Instructor = customer and project manager
Benefit: customer always present
Disadvantage: hard to play two roles
2nd semester: grad students project managers
Stand-up meetings
Very efficient
Couldn’t access laptop
Had to make contribution
Everybody had to speak
Beginning/end of class
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

18. XP Practices On-site Customer Customer presence emphasized Fall:
Instructor = customer + project manager
Spring:
Instructor = customer
Grad assistants = project manager
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

19. XP Practices Stand-up Meetings Beginning/end of class
Each student had to speak
Very efficient
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

20. XP Practices Testing Emphasized because is important Fall: test plan
Spring: JUnit & test-driven development
Some problems
Tested after coding
Didn’t realize value of JUnit
Didn’t realize value of JUnit due to small programs
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

21. Assessment Quantitative Qualitative Affective objectives
Cognitive objectives
Qualitative
Student comments
Observations
Affective objectives involve the promotion of professional practices, value, belonging, internalization of concepts, interest, perceived relevance…Intrinsic Motivation Inventory – validated instrument used to measure affect levels
Leo Denton and I have done research on integrating affective objectives into our CIS curriculum and in that research we have measured the affective factors of interests, value, effort, perceived competence, lack of pressure, and belonging. We measured these affective levels using a validated instrument as a pretest and a posttest and also correlated these factors with course grade. We have found that the factors positively correlate with grades. Correlation does not necessarily mean causation.
Our other papers that have details of these statistics are on my web page.
For this study we wanted to also promote team skills and so we used XP practices to create a real world programming team environment and asked to students to evaluate each other on team skills such as communication, cooperation, work-ethic, commitment, and adaptability.
We also asked for student comments and had observers (Leo Denton and David Ensminger) come on the last day of the lab to record their observations on these categories.
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

22. Quantitative Results: Affective Factors Correlated with Course Grade
Student interest
Belonging
Value
Perceived competence
Lack of pressure
Effort
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

23. Qualitative Data Student Comments Satisfaction + - Real world + -
Team work + -
Cooperation + -
Professional skills + -
Observations
Communication + -
Cooperation + -
Adaptability + -
Work-ethic + -
Commitment + -
We used both student comments and observation in order to collect qualitative data.
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

24. Reflections: Benefits
Confidence building, “pair pressure”
A sense of belonging
Shared euphoria
Working code
Higher course relevance
Self-regulated learning
Cooperative learning
A sense of satisfaction
Promoted the development of professional skills
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

25. Reflections: Improvements Needed
Instructor role of customer
Lab assistants as project manager
Student journals
Stricter adherence to the iteration schedule
Test-driven development needs to be automated
XPAU 2004
Calgary, Canada
School of Computer and Information Sciences
University of South Alabama, Mobile, Alabama USA

26. Julie Froeseth jf301@jaguar1.usouthal.edu
Dawn McKinney
Julie Froeseth
Jason Robertson