Michael E. Caspersen

Danish computer scientist Michael Edelgaard Caspersen (born in 1960 in Svenborg, Denmark) has spent his academic life furthering computer science education, at all levels. His research interests are computing education, programming didactics, programming methodology, and object-oriented programming. He is best known for his work on computing education research and development, particularly his work to promote informatics as a fundamental discipline for all.[12]

Michael E. Caspersen
Born (1960-11-22) November 22, 1960
Svendborg, Denmark
CitizenshipDenmark
Education1984 B.Sc. in CS and Math; Aarhus U.
1987 M.Sc. in CS; Aarhus U.[1]
2007 PhD; Aarhus U.
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science
InstitutionsAarhus Business College
Computer Science, Aarhus U.
It-vest[11]
ThesisEducating Novices in the Skills of Programming (2007)
Doctoral advisorsOle Lehrmann Madsen
David Gries
Websitewww.cs.au.dk/~mec
Notes

Michael has developed novel pedagogical approaches to teaching programming and program development, and his consistent and thorough use of hypothesis testing during his research has set a standard for the field. He was one of the first to use cognitive load theory in this research.

Michael has served pivotal roles in developing informatics education in Danish high schools and, by personal invitation of the Minister of Education, at the primary and lower secondary levels. He also has provided leadership within the ACM and on various groups in Europe to improve computing/informatics education throughout Europe.

Education

Michael was born in Svendborg, Denmark. He went to Nordre Skole for primary and lower secondary school and to Svendborg Statsgymnasium for upper secondary school. He earned an M.Sc. in computer science from Aarhus University.[1]

At Aarhus University, Michael was exposed to world-class computing education; new ideas of programming methodology developed by Dijkstra found their way into the first-year course, as did relational algebra and the semantics of programs. This educational experience had a profound impact on Michael's perspective on computing and devotion to computer science education, leading to his PhD thesis.[14]

Personal life

Michael E. Caspersen is married to Susanne Caspersen; they have two children, Christina and Christopher, and four grandchildren, Filippa, Lucca, Asta, and Petra.

Leadership roles: Education in Computer Science / Informatics

Michael has been a major force for improving education in computing at all levels on a national and international scale.

  • Founding member and first chair of the Danish CS Educators' Association (1995-2000).
  • Founding member of the Scandinavian Pedagogy of Programming Network established in 2004,[15] leading to publication of a book,[16] a novel and innovative collection of contributions that address all aspects of teaching programming.
  • Chair or co-chair five Danish Ministerial groups on various aspects of computing.
  • Co-chair of the Committee on European Computing Education (CECE),[17] which was created to foster further development of informatics education at all levels in Europe.
  • Second Chair (the first chair was Dame Wendy Hall) of the coalition Informatics for All,[18] which was formed in 2018; its members are the ACM Europe Council,[19] the CEPIS Education Committee,[20] Informatics Europe, and IFIP (2023-)
  • Member of the Digital Council of the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences (ATV),[5] and a member of its Steering Committee for Science & Engineering in Education. (2018-)
  • Special Advisor on Digital Education and Skills to the Executive Vice President of the European Union, Margrethe Vestager[21] (2022-2023)

Selected technical contributions

The programming process
  • 2007. PhD thesis: Educating Novices in the Skills of Programming[14]
  • 2009. Stream: A First programming process[22]
  • 2018. Principles of programming education[23]

Indicators of success
  • 2005. An Investigation of potential success factors for an introductory model-driven programming course[24]
  • 2006. Abstraction ability as an indicator of success for learning object-oriented programmings[25]
  • 2007. Mental models and programming aptitude[26][27]
  • 2008. Optimists have more fun, but do they learn better? On the influence of emotional and social factors on learning introductory computer science[28]
  • 2008. Abstraction ability as an indicator of success for learning computing science?[29]

Exemplary Examples (Example Program Quality)
  • 2007. Beauty and the Beast – Toward a Measurement Framework for Example Program Quality[30]
  • 2015. Beauty and the Beast: on the readability of object-oriented example programs[31]
  • 2008. Evaluating OO example programs for CS1[32]

Informatics for all
  • 2013. Computational Thinking and Practice — A Generic Approach to Computing in Danish High Schools[33]
  • 2014. Model-based thinking and practice: a top-down approach to computational thinking[34]

Failure rates in intro programming
  • 2007. Failure rates in introductory programming[35]
  • 2019. Failure rates in introductory programming: 12 years late[36]

Cognitive load theory in computing education
  • 2007. PhD thesis: Educating Novices in the Skills of Programming[37][14]
  • 2007. Instructional design of a programming course: a learning theoretic approach[38]

References
  1. Webpage[13] lists Masters Students. Caspersen is #285. The title of his Masters thesis was "Fordelte beregninger: Model og metode" ("Distributed Computations: Model and Method").
  2. "ACM Senior Member". ACM. Retrieved June 3, 2023.
  3. "ACM Distinguished Member". ACM. Retrieved June 3, 2023.
  4. "Honorary doctor and professor at Computer Science". Computer Science Department, Aarhus U. Archived from the original on May 15, 2023. Retrieved November 17, 2022.
  5. "Akademeit for de Tekniske Videnskaber". Retrieved June 5, 2023.
  6. Danish Academy of Technical Sciences.[5] Since 2018, he is member of ATV’s Digital Council, and he is member of the Steering Committee for Science & Engineering in Education
  7. "ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award". ACM. 2022. Retrieved May 4, 2023.
  8. "People of ACM - Michael E. Caspersen". ACM. July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  9. "It-vest - samarbejdende universiteter (Danish)". Archived from the original on May 17, 2023. Retrieved May 24, 2023.
  10. "It-vest - networking universities". Archived from the original on March 26, 2023. Retrieved June 3, 2023.
  11. It-vest is an educational and scientific collaboration between three universities in Denmark. Its main website is in Danish[9] but it has a partial site in English.[10] Caspersen is its Director.
  12. Michael has been named a "Person of the ACM", and this interview with him provides a wealth of information:[8]
  13. "Uddannede kandidater i Datalogi (Qualified candidates in Computer Science)". Institut for Datalogi, Aarhus University. Retrieved November 21, 2022.
  14. "Educating Novices in the Skills of Programming" (PDF). 2007. Retrieved May 23, 2023.
  15. "Scandinavian Pedagogy of Programming Network". Archived from the original on July 17, 2007.
  16. Bennedsen, Jens; Caspersen, Michael; Kölling, Michael, eds. (2008). Reflections on the Teaching of Programming. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. LNCS 4821. Springer Verlag. doi:10.1007/978-3-540-77934-6. ISBN 978-3-540-77933-9.
  17. "The Committee on European Computing Education (CECE)". Retrieved June 5, 2023.
  18. "The Informatics for All Coalition". Archived from the original on May 12, 2023. Retrieved June 5, 2023.
  19. "ACM Europe Council". ACM. Archived from the original on April 3, 2023. Retrieved June 5, 2023.
  20. "Informatics Education expert group". CEPIS. Archived from the original on February 3, 2023. Retrieved June 5, 2023.
  21. "Michael E. Caspersen appointed special EU-adviser on digital education". It-vest. 2022. Retrieved June 5, 2023.
  22. Caspersen, Michael; Kolling, Michael (March 2009). "Stream: A first programming process" (PDF). ACM Transactions on Computing Education. 9 (1): 1–29. doi:10.1145/1513593.1513597. S2CID 240169871.
  23. Caspersen, Michael (March 22, 2018). "Chapter 18: Principles of Programming Education". In Sentance, Sue (ed.). Computer Science Education: Perspectives on Teaching and Learning in School. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781350057135.
  24. Bennedsen, Jens; Caspersen, Michael (2005). "An Investigation of potential success factors for an introductory model-driven programming course". In Anderson, Richard; Fincher, Sally; Guzdial, Mark (eds.). ICER '05: Proc First International Workshop on Computing Education Research. ICER '05: First International Workshop on Computing Education Research. Seattle, WA: ACM. pp. 155–163. doi:10.1145/1089786.1089801.
  25. Bennedsen, Jens; Caspersen, Michael (June 2006). "Abstraction ability as an indicator of success for learning object-oriented programming?". ACM SIGCSE Bulletin. ACM. 38 (2): 39–43. doi:10.1145/1138403.1138430. S2CID 14991001.
  26. This is a particularly nice piece; it replicates someone else’s earlier study and reject their results – replication is unfortunately something we seldom see in computing education.
  27. Caspersen, Michael; Larsen, Kasper; Bennedsen, Jens (June 2007). "Mental models and programming aptitude". In Hughes, Janet (ed.). Proceedings of ITiCSE '07: 12th annual SIGCSE conf on Innovation and technology in computer science education. ITiCSE '07: 12th annual SIGCSE conf on Innovation and technology in computer science education. Dundee, Scotland: ACM. pp. 206–210. doi:10.1145/1268784.1268845. ISBN 978-1-59593-610-3.
  28. Bennedsen, Jens; Caspersen, Michael (March 2008). "Optimists have more fun, but do they learn better?". Computer Science Education. Taylor & Francis. 18 (1): 1–16. doi:10.1080/08993400701791133. S2CID 16277573.
  29. Bennedsen, Jens; Caspersen, Michael (September 2008). "Abstraction ability as an indicator of success for learning computing science?". In Lister, Raymond; Clancy, Michael (eds.). ICER '08: Proc Fourth International Workshop on Computing Education Research. ICER '08: Fourth International Workshop on Computing Education Research. Sydney, Australia: ACM. pp. 15–26. doi:10.1145/1404520.1404523. ISBN 978-1-60558-216-0.
  30. "Beauty and the Beast" (PDF). 2007. ISSN 0348-0542. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 6, 2017. Retrieved May 31, 2023.
  31. Börstler, Jürgen; Caspersen, Michael; Nordström, Marie (February 2015). "Beauty and the Beast: on the readability of object-oriented example programs". Software Quality Journal. Springer Verlag. 24 (2): 231–246. doi:10.1007/s11219-015-9267-5. S2CID 255074317.
  32. Börstler J, Caspersen M, et al. (June 2008). "Evaluating OO example programs for CS1". ACM SIGCSE Bulletin. ACM. 40 (3): 47–52. doi:10.1145/1597849.1384286.
  33. Caspersen, Michael; Nowack, Palle (January 2013). "Computational Thinking and Practice — A Generic Approach to Computing in Danish High Schools" (PDF). In Angela Carbone; Jacqueline Whalley (eds.). ACE2013: Proc Fifteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference. ACE2013: Fifteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference. Adelaide, South Australia: Australian Computer Society. pp. 137–143. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 31, 2023. Retrieved May 31, 2023.
  34. Nowack, Palle; Caspersen, Michael (November 2014). "Model-based thinking and practice: a top-down approach to computational thinking". In Simon; Kinnunen, Päivi (eds.). Koli Calling '14: Proc of the the14th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research. Koli Calling '14: 14th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research. Koli, Finland: ACM. pp. 147–151. doi:10.1145/2674683.2674686. ISBN 978-1-4503-3065-7.
  35. Bennedsen, Jens; Caspersen, Michael (June 2007). "Failure rates in introductory programming". ACM SIGCSE Bulletin. ACM. 39 (2): 32–36. doi:10.1145/1272848.1272879. S2CID 12157345.
  36. Bennedsen, Jens; Caspersen, Michael (April 2019). "Failure rates in introductory programming: 12 years late". ACM Inroads. ACM. 10 (2): 30–36. doi:10.1145/3324888. S2CID 140238774.
  37. This is one of the first works to apply Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) to learning design in computing education.
  38. Caspersen, Michael; Bennedsen, Jens (September 2007). "Instructional design of a programming course: a learning theoretic approach". In Anderson, Richard; Fincher, Sally; Guzdial, Mark (eds.). ICER '07: Proc third international workshop on Computing education research. ICER '07: Third international workshop on computing education research. Atlanta, Georgia: ACM. pp. 111–122. doi:10.1145/1288580.1288595. ISBN 978-1-59593-841-1.
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