About the team

Authors and Contributors

Every development and testing team member was a past CDER trainee or early adopter. The training pipeline is how this project staffed itself.

Backbone team

Coordination and PDC Expertise

The backbone team ran the training workshops and biweekly meetings, facilitated discussion across institutions, provided PDC domain expertise, and authored Chapter 0.

Sushil K. PrasadUniversity of Texas at San Antonio · Lead institution

Alan SussmanUniversity of Maryland, College Park

Neena ThotaUniversity of Massachusetts, Amherst

Ramachandran VaidyanathanLouisiana State University, Baton Rouge

Charles WeemsUniversity of Massachusetts, Amherst

Chapter 1

Common CS1 Activities and Lessons

Chapter 1 is the shared resource chapter that sits between the project overview and the institution-specific chapters. Rather than presenting another local implementation, it identifies the recurring activity families and reusable guidance that cut across all eight exemplars — and it is the chapter most readers should start from.

It is the volume’s most broadly authored chapter — seventeen authors drawn from every development team, every testing team and the backbone team, which is why it reflects both building the material and adopting someone else’s.

Chapter 1 in the e-book → · chapter summary

April R. CrockettTennessee Technological University

Srishti SrivastavaUniversity of Southern Indiana

David P. BundeKnox College

Xiaoyuan SuoWebster University

Charlotte GrunerCasper College

Jaime SpaccoKnox College

Mary L. SmithHawai’i Pacific University

Jiayin WangMontclair State University

Chris BourkeUniversity of Nebraska–Lincoln

Michelle ZhuKennesaw State University

Peter MaherWebster University

Gerald C. GannodTennessee Technological University

Alan SussmanUniversity of Maryland, College Park

Neena ThotaUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst

Charles WeemsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst

Ramachandran VaidyanathanLouisiana State University

Sushil K. PrasadUniversity of Texas at San Antonio

Listed in the order the volume gives them.

Chapter authors

Development and Testing Teams

Two development teams built the original exemplars in two different languages and institutional contexts. Six testing teams transferred them into their own courses, adapted them, and fed the experience back.

Contributors

Beyond the Chapter Bylines

The wider CDER community

The volume draws on the NSF/IEEE-TCPP curriculum working group whose guideline defines the topic scope; more than 140 funded early adopters whose experience reports shaped what was worth building, within a community that has grown to roughly 300 participants and institutions nationally and internationally; and the Edu* and SIGCSE communities who reviewed and stress-tested the materials.

Faculty learning community formation — community building among CS1 and CS2 practitioners, sustainability through professional curriculum bodies and institutional adoption, and cross-team coordination — was led within the backbone team.

Get in touch

Thinking of Adopting?

The material is free and needs no permission to use. Tell us what you are considering and we can point you at the right chapter, help you scope a first adoption, or arrange a short consultation.

Knowing where the exemplars travel also lets the project report to NSF.

Request adoption help Join the Discord

Prefer plain email? Write to contact@nsfexemplar.cdercenter.org.