Co-authorship networks have been used to study collaboration patterns in various fields, evaluate researchers and recommend policies. In their simplest form they are constructed by considering ...authors to be network nodes connected to each other if they published a paper together. We propose to further explore the same data by constructing a different network, in which nodes are articles linked to one another if they have a common author. For papers published in the fields of computer science and mathematics with affiliations to Romanian institutions, we show that this type of network reveals patterns of collaborative behavior and offers new insights about practices in the field. We find that the proposed networks are smaller and denser than the co-authorship networks, have a better defined community structure, and directly represent the results of collaborative endeavors by focusing on the actual outcome, i.e., published papers.
It is important to introduce computer programming concepts to K-12 students in preparation and motivation for college-level programming courses. Furthermore, generalization and abstraction are skills ...needed in computer science and other STEM majors. The Collaborative Partnership to teach mathematical Reasoning through Computer PRogramming (CPR2) Instructional Model (IM) was developed to use Python programming as a vehicle for explicit instruction in mathematical generalization and abstraction. Students are introduced to programming for the purpose of exploring mathematical concepts. They write code embedded with mathematical general expressions, observe the behavior of those expressions at scale in the execution of their programs, make conjectures about emerging patterns, and write convincing arguments to support these conjectures. During a two-week summer institute in 2020, middle school math teachers participated in professional development using the CPR2 instructional model. Teachers were provided with an introduction to programming and then shown how to apply the instructional model to math concepts while addressing computer science and math standards in the process. During the following fall and spring, the CPR2-trained teachers piloted lessons using Python programming to explore math concepts in their own classrooms. In this paper, details about the instructional model, the collaborative design research process used to refine professional development sessions, the key role of experienced teacher mentors in supporting new participants, and the incorporation of programming into the teachers' math classrooms are detailed. The results of design sessions and the pilot implementation are also discussed.
