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Below are different student personas. The personas represent various ways in which students may be struggling or experiencing frustration in a CS class. For each of the personas, think about how you could respond and support the student.
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SCARED PUPPY
This student is completely overwhelmed by their CS class, even though they are doing quite well. They fixate on the number of compiler errors or the number of times they have to change things to get their program working. The errors or confusions they encounter are very typical, but they cannot get past the volume and sometimes can’t figure out where to start. |
PERFECTIONIST
This student is a high achiever and is used to school coming easily to them. Their work in their CS class is, in reality, very strong. But, like most CS students, they often don’t get things right the first time and sometimes have errors they don’t catch, resulting in lost points. Despite carrying a solid B+ grade, they feel like a failure and are beginning to shut down. |
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HUSTLER
This student is very concerned with their grade, often at the expense of their learning. They will regularly ask “why did I lose these points” or make tenuous arguments attempting to prove that their solution meets the requirements. These discussions occur on nearly every assignment, regardless of the student’s original grade. |
PESSIMIST
This student has never been particularly good at math, and believes that means they are doomed to failure in CS. They’re not a bad math student per se, but the subject has never come easily to them. In CS, while they do sometimes struggle with the more math-heavy assignments, they seem to have a knack for finding creative algorithms to solve problems. |
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OPPORTUNIST
This student wants to do as little work as possible, whether due to laziness or fear of failure. They have figured out that, if they’re careful, they can ask for “help” often and get handheld through most of an assignment. They are very good at following instructions or implementing code they’ve been given, but resist continuing on their own past the last point they were helped to. |
SHOW-OFF
This student has previous programming experience, though it may be limited. Regardless, they see themselves as an expert programmer and insist on finding a “better” way to implement every assignment, sometimes ignoring requirements to do so. As a result, they often achieve much lower grades than expected, either because they did not complete the assignment as written or the advanced technique they tried didn’t work. |