Teaching Database Management with Automated Grading Technology
Gove N. Allen Brigham Young University
Nicolas Ball Utah Valley University
Trissa Cox Howard Payne University
David Weber Northern Arizona Unversity
Objectives A foundational course for computer information systems is relational database management. The core of this course comprises three main learning objectives: Understand the Relational Model; be able to create a well-formed set of tables and insert data; and be able to query existing data from a relational database management system.
In any learning environment, the ability for students to receive high-quality, timely feedback is an important factor in the learning process. The way that students learn this topic well is by having some formal instruction on how to work with relational technology and then to practice the theory while receiving feedback on their performance. To the extent that feedback cycles can be shortened, students can get more practice and learn from their own mistakes. The problem with traditional approaches to teaching relational database management is that grading students’ work in table creation, data manipulation and query formulation is a labor intensive, time consuming activity, resulting in students having only limited practice with long delays before seeing how well they performed.
Recently, technology has been made available to database instructors to allow the instant assessment of student work for both the creation of tables and views as well as the formulation of ad hoc queries. Panel participants have used this technology in their teaching and will share their experience using the technology in the classroom as well as how it has facilitated student learning and reduced time spent in grading activities. Certain caveats of using this new technology will be discussed.
Targeted Attendees Instructors who teach database management
Recommended Citation: Allen, G. N., Ball, N., Cox, T., Weber, D., (2016). Teaching Database Management with Automated Grading Technology. Proceedings of the EDSIG Conference, (2016) n.4151, Las Vegas, Nevada