Empowering Faculty to Integrate GenAI into CS Education
Leo Porter (UC San Diego)
Distinguished Lecture Series
Thursday, November 12, 2026, 3:30 pm
Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium
Abstract
Generative AI has substantially altered the professional craft of software engineering. For CS programs that seek to prepare the next generation of software engineers, course and curricular revisions are almost certainly necessary. Indeed, in this talk I will argue that curricular revisions are long overdue and, if done properly, can address multiple gaps in many existing CS curricula. As an example, I will focus on the CS1-LLM course we developed at UC San Diego. In designing the course, we updated our learning goals, course objectives, and assessment practices. Our studies of the course have shown that students can use GenAI tools to create software projects of personal interest while still learning programming fundamentals necessary for later courses.
Creating and studying such course revisions requires substantial effort and, importantly, we need to ensure that this effort isn’t borne by thousands of individual educators currently seeking guidance and support on how to proceed. As such, to broadly share adoptable courses and best practices, we founded the GenAI in CS Education Consortium with a gift from Google.org. Concluding the talk, I will describe our efforts toward the consortium's mission to support organizations of educators, facilitate curricular development, empower large-scale research studies, and create a community of practice around course and curricular revisions.
BIO
Leo Porter is a Professor and Vice Chair for Masters Programs at the Computer Science and Engineering Department at UC San Diego. He is best known for his research on the impact of Peer Instruction in computing courses, the development of the Basic Data Structures Concept Inventory, and integrating GenAI into the CS curriculum. He co-wrote the first book on integrating LLMs into the instruction of programming with Daniel Zingaro. He has received eight Best Paper Awards, an ICER Lasting Impact Award, the SIGCSE 50th Anniversary Top Ten Symposium Papers of All Time Award, and the Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award at UC San Diego. He co-Directs the GenAI in CS Education Consortium, aimed at helping faculty and institutions integrate GenAI into the CS Curriculum.
This lecture will be recorded and streamed live on the Allen School's YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@uwcse), unless otherwise noted. The link will be available on that page one hour prior to the event.
The University of Washington is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation in its services, programs, activities, education and employment for individuals with disabilities. Live captioning will be provided for this event. To request disability accommodation such as ASL interpretation, contact the Disability Services Office at least ten days in advance of the event at: (206) 543-6450/V, (206) 543-6452/TTY, (206) 685-7264 (FAX), or email at dso@u.washington.edu.