“Discovery Teaching” is an in-class web application providing an efficient standard platform for students and instructors to actively engage and interact during learning and teaching activities in the class. The application and this study are part of the research of Prof. William Tarimo and Prof. Timothy Hickey, of the Computer Science departments at Connecticut College and Brandeis University, respectively.

Agile methodologies have revolutionized the software development process through continuous assessment and adaptation of the development e↵ort, collaboration with customers, and incremental delivery of features towards a complete product. In this dissertation we are proposing an analogous methodology for pedagogy called Computer-Supported Agile Teaching (CSAT). The CSAT framework is founded on the principles of agile teaching, active learning, and a reliance on technology in achieving pedagogy design that is ecient with decision-making that is evidence-based. In CSAT, the discovery of e↵ective learning and teaching methods is similar to agilebased development, where students, teaching assistants (TAs) and instructors work as a cross-functional and self-organizing team. Just as in agile, the team works in transparency (collaboration among students and the teaching sta↵ around explicit teaching and learning objectives), inspection (of the learning and teaching processes and their e↵ectiveness towards achieving optimal curriculum results), and in adaptation of the pedagogy (teaching and learning methods and resources) in response to the observed needs and potentials of the learners. Constant use of learning analytics, formative assessments and feedback activities are used as learning opportunities and ways to evaluate learning and teaching processes. Throughout this design, we take advantage of the a↵ordances and capabilities of modern information technology in achieving better eciency and e↵ectiveness of the supported learning and teaching activities. vi In the four years of this doctoral work, we designed and developed the TeachBack webbased application to support the CSAT methodology. This process involved continuous engagement with teachers and students inside and outside of the classroom as we refined our pedagogy ideas and the corresponding TeachBack features. Through the use of TeachBack and various experimental studies we evaluated the feasibility and e↵ectiveness of the proposed CSAT methodology. We discovered that pedagogy-based use of computers in the classroom can e↵ectively support learning and teaching. Moreover, data generated in computer-mediated classrooms can be used to more accurately discover learning characteristics of the individual students, to better evaluate the e↵ectiveness of learning and teaching methods, to rapidly detect students at-risk, and to adapt the pedagogy to the needs and potentials of the learners using an evidence-based approach. These are the processes that define the implementation of CSAT in the classroom. Based on these results, we believe that the proposed CSAT methodology is both feasible and pedagogically e↵ective, and has the potential to positively transform college teaching and learning.