Alexander Steinmaurer - Academic Website
Hi, I am Alexander Steinmaurer, a researcher and lecturer at IT:U Austria, a newly founded interdisciplinary university in Linz, Austria. I am also an adjunct fellow at the Cognitive and Digital Science Lab at Graz University of Technology. I obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Faculty of Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering at Graz University of Technology under the supervision of Christian Gütl.
During the fall semester of 2023, I worked as a Research Fellow at the PLT Group of Brown University. I worked on approaches and tools to rethinking data science/programming education in times of LLMs, advised by Shriram Krishnamurthi and Kathi Fisler.
My research interests are mainly in the field of Computer Science Education. Here is a list of topics that I am interested in:
- Engaging learning technologies - Designing engaging and interactive learning experiences in digital (and immersive) environments. This not only includes the development of technologies but also the evaluation within an educational setting.
- LLM-assisted (CS) teaching - Meaningful (!) integration of large language models (LLMs) into educational contexts, such as individualizing learning experiences.
- Educational data analysis - Analysis of educational data (qualitative and quantitative) retrieved from a real-life context such as courses, workshops, learning technology, or data sets.
- Virtual Reality in Teaching - Using mixed reality approaches to transform traditional learning contexts in immersive learning experiences.
- Game-based learning and gamification - From a broad perspective, game-based learning could be seen as an engaging learning technology. But GBL/gamification is more than “playing a game and learning”. A well-considered design process, implementation, and evaluation are necessary for both the tool and the teaching context.
- Large-scale teaching - Evaluation of students’ learning experiences within a large-scale teaching and learning context.
- Curriculum design - Designing dedicated curricula for different educational contexts and topics such as data science, introduction to programming, or computational thinking.
Teaching
During my academic career, I had the opportunity to give many different lectures and courses. I gave courses at Graz University of Technology, FH Campus 02, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, and University College of Teacher Education Styria.
I am especially proud that the courses Introduction to Programming and Object-oriented Programming 1 were nominated (and short-listed) twice for the Excellence in Teaching Award from TU Graz. In 2022/23 the course Object-oriented Programming 1 was finally awarded with the prize. We presented our teaching concept for the course in a poster.
Courses
- Introduction to Programming [WS 2020-2024] - This course is offered as a first-semester course (winter semester) at TU Graz and is an introduction to programming using the C programming language. Around 800 students from different study programs participate each year in this lecture and practical lab. [Course website, YT channel]
- Object-oriented Programming 1 [SS 2021-2024] - This follow-up course on Introduction to Programming is a second-semester course where students learn the fundamentals of object-oriented programming using C++. [Course website, YT channel]
- Project Management [SS 2021-2024] - This is a mandatory course in the Bachelor’s program of software engineering and management at Graz University of Technology. Students learn about the fundamentals of project management when working on an actual project in teams of four. [YT playlist]
- Introduction to Scientific Working [2021-2024] - This course is mandatory for TU Graz students who want to write their Bachelor’s thesis. It is held each semester. [Course website, YT playlist]
- Engaging Learning Technologies [WS 2020-2024] - In this interdisciplinary elective course, students learn about developing learning technologies and educational scenarios while evaluating their projects in real school classes.
- Development of Multimedia Systems (previously Multimedia Systems 2) [SS 2021-2024] - This seminar is part of the Master’s program Media Informatics and Digital Media Education at the University College of Teacher Education Styria. It covers different topics related to multimedia systems, such as educational system design, game-based learning, evaluation, or web development. [Course resources ‘23]
- Markup Languages [SS 2021-2022] - This four-semester course is part of the Business Software Development program of FH Campus 02 (University of Applied Sciences). It covers the fundamentals of markup languages (HTML, XML, XSD, XPath) but also covers micro-services and interface design (REST, JSON).
- Operating Systems [WS 2020-2021] - This first-semester course at the Business Data Science program of FH Campus 02 covers the basics of operating systems. The students worked on concepts such as process management, memory management, I/O devices, Bash programming, and computer architecture.
Supervising
I also had the honor to work with talented Bachelor and Master students and (co-)supervise their thesis:
Master Students
- David Eckhard (2023) - Design and Development of a Collaborative Multiplayer Environment for Programming Education
- David Kerschbaumer (2023) - The Code to Success: Developing a Student Source Code Analysis Tool to Predict Course Performance and Identify Key Concepts in Programming Education
- Michael Umfahrer (2023) - Development and Implementation of SMAwT - An Online Learning Module to foster Social Media Literacy
- Martin Sackl (2021) - Improving Human-Computer Interactions in a Game-Based Learning Environment
- Anil Kumar Tilanthe (2021) - Development of a Learning Analytics Application for a Coding Learning Game
Bachelor Students
- Anton Domonkos (2024) - MessbAR – Entwicklung und Evaluation einer Augmented Reality App im Größenbereich Längen [Paper PriMaMedien’24]
- Ratko Savic (2023) - Analyzing Social Networks and Learning Content on a Discussion Forum of an Introductory Programming MOOC in Higher Education [Paper LWMOOCS’23]
- Mario Skedelj (2023) - Usability Evaluierung einer progressiven Business Web-Applikation mittels Usability Framework
- Azra Bajramovioc (2023) - Playing Video Games to Learn Computational Thinking? A Case Study of Game-Based Learning in Secondary CS Education [ICL’23 Paper]
- Matthias Hülser (2022) - Designing and Implementation of a Mobile Streaming Platform for the Austrian Red Cross
- Christoph Schatz (2022) - Analyzing Behavioral Patterns in an Introductory Programming MOOC at University Level [Paper LWMOOCS’22 Conference]
Research
Reserach Vision
Motivated by Shriram Krishnamurthi, I strongly favor having a reserach vision rather than a narrowly defined reserach area. My scientific “home base” lies at the intersection of technology and education, constituting the core of my research endeavors. Since Data affects my everyday life, my reserach vision turns around data:
Data is omnipresent, people generate it every day; it depicts our complex reality. Learning is ubiquitous; people learn every day; it is the basis for positive change. How can data and learning be linked to bring positive change?
Research projects
This (non-exhaustive) list of my latest (reserach) projects shows what I am interested in:
- PDA - Divide and conquer - Decomposing problems to make solvable problems out of it, this is one of the central learning goals of many CS1 courses. In theory, this sounds easy, but in practice, this is one of the hardest concepts to learn! One approach to help students with that is problem planning (similar to architects that are making a plan for a house. In traditional classes with a high number of students, this approach will cause scaling issues. PDA tries to solve this problem by using the code generation capabilities of LLMs combined with problems written in natural languages that are translated to source code and tested against a test suite. This tool was developed collaboratively with Brown University and evaluated in one of my coding classes at TU Graz.
- TransfArr - Transferring between different programming languages can be challenging for beginners. Not only is the syntax different, but semantical and idiomatic features differ between languages. The tool TransfArr aims to help learners master the transition from the programming language Pyret to Python by providing a helpful environment.
- PM Stocket - The PM Stocket is a tool that has been used since 2021 in the course Project Management at Graz University of Technology. The tool was introduced to engage students into various activities within this class (but also beyond the scope of the course). The tool was evaluated every academic year and improved further to provide students with a motivating platform to learn and collaborate.
- SMAwT - The Social Media Awareness Training (SMAwT) is an interdisciplinary reserach project with teachers, educators, software developers, and researchers from several areas. The aim of this tool is (and was) to train secondary school children in social media skills. The usage of the training was accompanied by a reserach study on how social media affects kids everyday life.
- sCool - The educational video game sCool was my entry point into academia and research. Based on the idea that kids learn coding by working with a video game, the tool was developed further and improved in several Bachelor’s and Master’s thesis.
Publications
I maintain my publications within a Google Docs publication list
Before that, I liked to use Research Gate for a while to manage all my publications. But as with almost every social network, it requires quite active maintenance, which takes some time. Even though RG has some good functionality to support you as much as possible, I ended up using mainly Google Scholar instead. There you can find all my (recent) papers.
Working with me?
If you are interested in my research area and would like to discuss your ideas for a Bachelor’s or Master’s thesis, I would love to hear from you - drop me an email (alexander.steinmaurer@it-u.at). Ensure that this email also contains some first serious thoughts on the topic, including an interesting problem/question you would like to answer (you do not have to come up with a solution/implementation, a good question is a perfect starting point!)
Useful Resources
- Scientific Working - As part of my seminar/workshop on Introduction to Scientific Working at Graz University of Technology, I started a webpage with helpful guidance and resources. This page will steadily grow and be maintained.
- List of relevant CS Ed Conferences - I started a list with conferences that I personally find relevant in the field of Immersive Learning and CS Education.