What Data Has To Say About Pandemic Influence On Computer Science Education

Switch to online learning and then extensive use of online tools in education due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic did contribute to a change in how we perceive and deliver education. We have to find intuitive ways to get the non-verbal cues that we are missing in an online and masked-up environment. Now, there is much more data available that can possibly tell us the effectiveness of the tools we use and the effects of the change. We believe that data analytics-driven mechanisms have a big role to play in uncovering and understanding students’ learning patterns and how to influence them. We collected statistics about students' experience level before and after the class, students' claimed time spent every week working on a particular class, students' responsiveness to surveys, journals, forums, tests, labs, students' grades every week, and students' overall grades. We did so for several classes and for a group of students of at least 12 students through different classes over 3 semesters - before, during and after the switch to online classes. We are aware that we cannot draw meaningful conclusions as we don't have enough data before the pandemic and we have adjusted teaching as we have been looking at the data but the overall experience will hopefully spark some important discussions and lead towards better definition of the research problem.