Image of Dr. Schafer

J. Ben Schafer

Professor, Department of Computer Science
Program Coordinator, CSED@UNI
University of Northern Iowa
32 East Bartlett (Office)
221 Lang Hall (CSEd Lab)
Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0507
(319)-273-2187



Current Schedule

To view my teaching schedule and how to schedule a meeting with me please click here.

Teaching

Spring 2024

Other Courses I have taught (last time taught)

Research

Historically, my research interests involved recommender systems, collaborative information systems, and agent assisted interfaces.  This draws from the fields of information retrieval, artificial intelligence (AI), and human computer interaction (HCI).  I was very involved with this line of research until about 2008 and while I haven't published in this area in a while, it is still very much a part of my interest set. The work I did between 1998 and 2008 continues to be consistently cited as foundational work in the discipline.

However, for over a decade I have been working almost exclusively in computer science education, the use of computers in education, and teaching strategies for computer science education.  This includes curriculum work (for which I now chair the Computer Science Education team at UNI), classroom teaching strategies (including curriculum development for POGIL and Peer-Instruction), and equitable grading practices.

 


Contents last modified August 20, 2023