Learning to code with and without AI
This post was co-written with Majeed Kazemitabaar, a PhD student at the University of Toronto, whom I've been collaborating with on AI tools for CS education. We summarize two research papers in this post that Majeed led.
Tools like ChatGPT are capable of solving many introductory programming tasks. In fact, you can often just copy-paste the instructions without any additional effort and get a detailed solution and explanation back.
This has caused a lot of discussion about the learning effects of LLMs that generate code from natural language descriptions on programming education (e.g., The Robots Are Coming). Educators are concerned about students becoming over-reliant on AI tools and not learning effectively. In contrast, these tools might also potentially lower the barriers of entry to programming, and even broaden participation into computing!
The full details of this research can be found in two papers: Studying the effect of AI Code Generators on Supporting Novice Learners in Introductory Programming (CHI'23) and How Novices Use LLM-Based Code Generators to Solve CS1 Coding Tasks in a Self-Paced Learning Environment (Koli Calling'23).
