A few years ago I re-wrote one of our core computer architecture courses (it has the course code COMP2300). Itâs a large (400+ students) compulsory course, so thereâs a spread of different levels of interest, aptitude & enthusiasm in the student cohort.
One of the tricky parts of COMP2300 is that it doesnât use a high-level programming language (with recognisable keywords like if, else, for, etc.) where a function which adds two integers (whole numbers) together might look like this:Â
Instead, in COMP2300 all the programming is done in âassemblyâ language, which is fairly close to the direct stream of bytes that the CPU sees as itâs executing your code. But itâs less readable to humansâthe above add function might look like this in assembly language:Â
While this is a great chance to learn how CPUs work, the unfamiliarity can be challengingâand the students arenât shy about saying so.
The hidden communication channels
Iâve learned over the last few years is that for every âofficialâ course forum/communication channel thereâs at least one shadow channel thatâs created somewhere else. These Facebook/WhatsApp Insta/WeChat/TikTok/etc channels are where the students really let their hair down and say what they think about the course.Â
One unexpected (to me) upside of these channels is that as the students chat with one another, they come up with some really helpful explanations of the concepts theyâre struggling with in the course material. And theyâre really good at making memes. Here are just a few of the ones which Iâve seen end up on the allowed âcheat sheetsâ in the COMP2300 final exam.
I donât know where they came fromâalthough clearly at least some of them were created specifically for COMP2300. But I know from talking to students that they really helped them understand and remember key concepts from the course.
Harnessing students as content creators
Iâm currently brushing up my course syllabus for the new semester which starts next week. And Iâm sure my students will make new memes for (among other things) explaining the course content to each other. But if these memes only appear on the âsecretâ channels then thatâs not good from a student equity perspective. I want to make sure all students benefit, not just the ones in the right âhiddenâ channels.
So this year Iâm going to include a meme thread as part of the official course forum. Since itâs an official course communication channel Iâm sure itâll be kept respectful, and then all my students can benefit. As I teach bigger and more diverse classes, the chance to harness these studentsâ brilliance in meme-making (and some of them are seriously good at it) to help all my students learn seems like a win. I canât wait to see what they come up with âş
Note: if youâre using MS Teams for your class discussion, thereâs even a few settings relating to memes and gifs which you might want to make sure are enabled.
March 2021
Ben Swift is a senior lecturer, multidisciplinary researcher and leader of the code/creativity/culture group in the Research School of Computer Science.
