Teaching with Artificial Life Workshop

At ALIFE 2020

Because Artificial Life spans the fields of computer science and biology, it offers a unique perspective on the education of novices in both of those fields. This workshop aims to bring together educators and researchers in artificial life to discuss the many ways in which artificial life can be used to teach both biology and computer science. The workshop will welcome formally-tested educational approaches but we also recognize the value in reporting educational experiences that did not have a control group. A secondary goal of the workshop will be to spark collaborations to formally test the effectiveness of artificial life approaches to achieve various educational goals.

The workshop on Teaching with Artificial Life will be held as a part of the 2020 Conference on Artificial Life (ALIFE 2020). Like ALIFE 2020, the workshop will be online only but we still plan on having an exciting, interactive event. Like many workshops, there will be short online videos for keynotes and paper presentations which will be available before the workshop. During the workshop, we will have a live Q&A session for the keynote and submitted works followed by a 30-minute round table discussion with authors. The second half of the workshop will focus on discussion of the general characteristics of successful and unsuccessful uses of artificial life for educational purposes as well as next steps for the presented work and work from the workshop attendees. Finally, we will provide time for brainstorming by the attendees on ways that artificial life could be used for their own educational goals.

Schedule (in EDT)

• 1:00-1:05: Welcome and explanation of process (Anya Vostinar)
• 1:05-1:25: Keynote (Louise Mead)
• 1:25-1:40: TBD (Michael Wiser)
• 1:40-1:55: “Artificial Life in Game Mods for Intuitive Evolution Education” (Anya Vostinar and Barbara Z. Johnson)
• 1:55-2:10: “Social Evolution Engine (SEE): Experimental social evolution using the Unity game engine” (Jasmeen Kanwal)
• 2:10-2:25: “Embedding Artificial Life Themes in Introductory Programming Courses” (Lisa Soros)
• 2:25-2:35: Break
• 2:35-2:45: Collecting topics for discussion/break-out groups
• 2:45-3:45: Discussions
• 3:45-3:55: Closing Remarks

Important Dates

• Abstract Submission: June 15, 2020
• Author Notification: July 1, 2020
• Workshop: July 18th, 1pm EDT - 4pm EDT
• ALIFE: July 13-18, 2020

Organizers

• Anya E. Vostinar, vostinar@carleton.edu
• Barbara Z. Johnson
• Michael Wiser

Submissions

We welcome anyone to participate and encourage the submission of extended abstracts of 2-4 pages (MIT Press format). We are open to submissions concerning any way that artificial life can be used for teaching, whether that be formal or informal settings, computer science, biology, or something else. Formal educational research is greatly welcome, but informal experience reports are also encouraged. Accepted submissions will be presented as recorded videos prior to the workshop and published as an edited collection to the Artificial Life Teaching Materials repository established by Matthew Egbert. Abstracts must be submitted via email to vostinar@carleton.edu by June 15, 2020.