Programming Pedagogy and Assessment in the Era of AI/ML: A Position Paper

A growing set of tasks that once depended critically on human cognition can now be effectively accomplished by automated systems, either independently or in partnership with humans. This trend is being accelerated by advances in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and it forces educators to consider whether tasks emphasized by existing curricula will remain relevant once their students graduate. For introductory programming (CS1), existing curricula emphasize the task of code writing. We survey recent research on automated systems for writing code, some of which are as proficient as undergraduates on CS1-level programming tasks. Further, these tools are rapidly improving and some of them are available freely for students. Thus, we posit that pedagogy and assessment for code writing requires rethinking. We examine the components of the code-writing task using a six-step framework proposed in the literature, and we identify the impact of automated systems at each step. In response to this impact, we propose changes to CS1 pedagogy and assessment.