J. Ben Schafer Professor, Department of Computer Science Program Coordinator, CSED@UNI University of Northern Iowa 10F CEEE Building Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0507 (319)-273-2187

Teaching

Spring 2026

• CSED 1310, Programming Environments for Elementary Education (On-campus)
• CSED 2310, Foundational Concepts of Computer Science (On-campus)
• CSED 3310/5310, Teaching and Learning Programming

If you would like to schedule some time to meet with me, please check my schedule.

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 alternative grading practices.

• My publications.