Building Collaborative Learning: Exploring Social Annotation in Introductory Programming

Abstract: The increasing demand for software engineering education presents learning challenges in courses due to the diverse range of topics that require practical applications, such as programming or software design, all of which are supported by group work and interaction. Social Annotation (SA) is an approach to teaching that can enhance collaborative learning among students. In SA, both students and teachers utilize platforms like Feedback Fruits, Perusall, and Diigo to collaboratively annotate and discuss course materials. This approach encourages students to share their thoughts and answers with their peers, fostering a more interactive learning environment. We share our experience of implementing social annotation via Perusall as a preparatory tool for lectures in an introductory programming course aimed at undergraduate students in Software Engineering. We report the impact of Perusall on the examination results of 112 students. Our results show that 81% of students engaged in meaningful social annotation successfully passed the course. Notably, the proportion of students passing the exam tends to rise as they complete more Perusall assignments. In contrast, only 56% of students who did not participate in Perusall discussions managed to pass the exam. We did not enforce mandatory Perusall participation in the course. Yet, the feedback from our course evaluation questionnaire reveals that most students ranked Perusall among their favorite components of the course and that their interest in the subject has increased.