Anshul Shah

University of California-San Diego ayshah@ucsd.edu

I'm a PhD student studying computer science education and software engineering education under Gerald Soosairaj, Bill Griswold, and Leo Porter. My work centers around the theory of Cognitive Apprenticeship, which aims to use a variety of teaching methods to promote the development of expert-like skills in students. My research is motivated by prior work related to the the academia-industry gap, specifically work that illustrates student struggles in working with a large code base and adhering to programming processes such as debugging, testing, and incremental development. As a result, my research centers around two main areas:

  • 1. Working with Large Code Bases. I have co-developed and co-taught a course that uses Cognitive Apprenticeship techniques--modeling, scaffolding, coaching, reflection, articulation, and exploration--to teach students implicit processes of working on a large code base. My research goal is to understand how instructors can impart the necessary technical and communication skills to students before they enter the workforce. Preliminary results indicate that our Cognitive Apprenticeship approach to providing an authentic experience of contributing to a large code basehas improved students' confidence in comprehending and navigating a large code base.
  • 2. Live Coding. My early work centers around live coding--a pedagogical technique in which an instructor demonstrates the programming process for students in the hopes that students adopt similar processes. I use learning analytics to understand the impact of live coding on students' incremental development, debugging, and testing practices in a CS1 course. Ultimately, we found that compared to a traditional, static-code approach to teaching programming, live coding did not improve students' adherence to incremental development, debugging, or testing practices.

Publications

Anshul Shah and Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj. 2024. A Review of Cognitive Apprenticeship Methods in Computing Education Research. In Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (SIGCSE 2024). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1202–1208. https://doi.org/10.1145/3626252.3630769

Anshul Shah, Jerry Yu, Thanh Tong, and Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj. 2024. Working with Large Code Bases: A Cognitive Apprenticeship Approach to Teaching Software Engineering. In Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (SIGCSE 2024). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1209–1215. https://doi.org/10.1145/3626252.3630755

Anshul Shah, Emma Hogan, Vardhan Agarwal, John Driscoll, Leo Porter, William G. Griswold, and Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj. 2023. An Empirical Evaluation of Live Coding in CS1. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 1 (ICER '23), Vol. 1. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 476–494. https://doi.org/10.1145/3568813.3600122

Mrinal Sharma, Hayden McTavish, Zimo Peng, Anshul Shah, Vardhan Agarwal, Caroline Sih, Emma Hogan, Ismael Villegas Molina, Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj, and Kristen Vaccaro. 2023. Engagement and Anonymity in Online Computer Science Course Forums. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 1 (ICER '23), Vol. 1. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 48–62. https://doi.org/10.1145/3568813.3600121

Anshul Shah. 2023. Improving Students’ Programming Processes using Cognitive Apprenticeship Methods. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 2 (ICER '23), Vol. 2. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 102–106. https://doi.org/10.1145/3568812.3603458

Anshul Shah, Vardhan Agarwal, Michael Granado, John Driscoll, Emma Hogan, Leo Porter, William Griswold, and Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj. 2023. The Impact of a Remote Live-Coding Pedagogy on Student Programming Processes, Grades, and Lecture Questions Asked. In Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 (ITiCSE 2023). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 533–539. https://doi.org/10.1145/3587102.3588846

Anshul Shah, Michael Granado, Mrinal Sharma, John Driscoll, Leo Porter, William G. Griswold, and Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj. 2023. Understanding and Measuring Incremental Development in CS1. In Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (SIGCSE 2023), March 15–18, 2023, Toronto, ON, Canada. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 7 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3545945.3569880

Anshul Shah, Jonathan Liu, Kristin Stephens-Martinez, and Susan H. Rodger. 2021. The CS1 Reviewer App: Choose Your Own Adventure or Choose for Me!. In 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 (ITiCSE 2021), June 26–July 1, 2021, Virtual Event, Germany. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 7 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3430665.3456333

Teaching

(Instructor of Record) CSE 190: Working with Large Code Bases (UC San Diego)

Spring 24

Course Materials

(TA) CSE 190: Working with Large Code Bases (UC San Diego)

Spring 23

Course Materials

(TA) CSE 11: Advanced Introductory Programming (UC San Diego)

Fall 23

(TA) CSE 8A: Introductory Programming (UC San Diego)

Spring 22, Fall 22

(TA) Introduction to Data Science With Python (AI4All)

Summer 22

(TA) CS101: Introductory Programming in Python (Duke University)

Fall 18, Spring 19, Fall 19, Spring 20, Fall 21, Spring 21

(TA) CS216: Principles of Data Science (Duke University)

Spring 21

Contributions to Diversity

Cultural Competence in Computing (3C) Fellow

Spring 22-Spring 24

The Cultural Competence in Computing (3C) Fellows Program is a two-year program where participants learn about social justice topics in the context of education and computing, discuss these topics with each other across 10 seminars, and create deliverables to further ideals of diversity, equity, and inclusion at our home institutions. Stay tuned for our final deliverable!

Mentoring

Mentor for Graduate Teaching Assistants

Winter 23

I served as a mentor for the graduate teaching course taken by all first-time teaching assistants in the CSE Departments. I met with a group of 5 graduate teaching assistants one per week to discuss topics such as inclusive teaching practices, grading approach, and office hour interactions.

Mentor for Undergraduate Research

I have mentored the following undergraduate students in research:

  • Vardhan Agarwal
  • John Driscoll
  • Mrinal Sharma
  • Michael Granado
  • Amey Walimbe

Interests

I absolutely love surfing. I learned when I first moved to San Diego and I try to make it out to the La Jolla shores a few times a week. I also like to keep active with running, weightlifting, and biking.

I'm also an avid basketball fan- I support the Golden State Warriors and the Duke Blue Devils, of course!

Aside from my main passion of computer science education, I enjoy learning about human anthropology and psychology.



Education

Duke University

Durham, NC
Class of 2021

I majored in computer science and statistics. I also watched a lot of Duke Basketball and occasionally slept outside in a tent.

Amador Valley High School

Pleasanton, CA
Class of 2017

Go Dons!

Awards