Causeway: Scaling Experiential Learning Through Micro-Roles

Causeway is a platform for learning to develop web applications using an Angular, RxJS, NgRx, and Firebase stack. Most online coding tutorials focus on covering the technical syntax or features of a language or framework, which means that new developers don’t have great resources for building a holistic picture of how everything they learn connects to actually developing a complex web application. Causeway breaks down the process of developing a web application into a hierarchy of micro-roles which provides learners with a clear pathway for learning that also translates to a clear process for developing an application. In the longer future, this would also enable learners to easily contribute to projects as they learn through taking on micro-roles for yet-to-be-developed projects. The platform uses the Stackblitz WebContainer API to run full applications in the browser for interactive learning.

Thus far, we have developed a version of the platform that walks learners through the process of developing UI components of a web application as well as containers that contain multiple UI components and are responsible for fetching data from the backend and handling events and updates to the database. We’d like to extend the content to cover defining the database schema and entire applications, and to other topics beyond web development like AI/ML. We’d like to add quizzes to the experience and explore ways to use Generative AI to augment the learning experience, e.g. to support planning, reflection, and assessment. Finally, we’d like to instrument the application with logs and analytics so we can better measure impact and learning outcomes, and develop a stronger CI/CD pipeline.

Causeway / Improving the Core Infrastructure

The proposed work includes adding logging, analytics, and a production-level CI/CD pipeline, adding a robust testing framework, and refactoring some of our code into seperate modules. Both roles will also contribute to running usability studies and documenting the platform.

• Topics: Web Development, Educational Technologies, Angular
• Skills: Web development experience, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Angular, RxJS, NgRx, Firebase
• Difficulty: Medium to Hard
• Size: Large (350 hours)
• Mentors: David Lee

Causeway / Quizzes and Generative AI

The proposed work includes extending the application to support quizzes, adding quizzes for the existing tasks, and exploring the use of generative AI to support the quizzes feature. Both roles will also contribute to running usability studies and documenting the platform.

• Topics: Web Development, Educational Technologies, Angular
• Skills: Web development experience, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Angular, RxJS, NgRx, Firebase, Generative AI
• Difficulty: Medium to Hard
• Size: Large (350 hours)
• Mentors: David Lee