Mattox Beckman

Mattox Beckman

Teaching Associate Professor of Computer Science

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Biography

I am a Teaching Associate Professor of Computer Science at the Univerisity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the Department of Computer Science. I am passionate about teaching, functional programming languages (particulaly Haskell), and Competitive Programming/ICPC.

I received my PhD from UIUC in 2003, studying self-applicable online partial evaluators under Sam Kamin. I taught Computer Science at the Illinois Institute of Technology for 13 years before returning here in 2015.

Interests
  • Computer Science Education
  • Competitive Programming
  • Functional Programming
Education

  • PhD in Computer Science, 2003

    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  • BS in Math and Computer Science, 1993

    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Teaching

I teach the following courses.

I usually flip my classroom if possible, and during the “lecture” time have the students work on a POGIL activity. Currently I am experimenting with Specifications Grading It is a bit of an adjustment, but so far I like it.

Recent Posts

Mastery Grading - an Experience Report
I recently read Linda Nilson’s book on Specifications Grading, and wanted to try that in my course. It turns out that I implemented Mastery Grading, not Specifications Grading, but the two are similar.
Last updated on July 8, 2021 5 min read teaching
How to Flip Your Classroom
I frequently get asked how I went about flipping my classroom, so I decided to write it up here. I’m going to assume you already think a flipped classroom is a good idea and that you want to do this.
Last updated on April 3, 2021 6 min read teaching

Publications

Hyun Hannah Choi, Selim Havan, Charlotte Hathaway, Blake Everett Johnson, Mattox Beckman, Yuting W. Chen, Lucas Anderson (2021). Inform Track: Integrated Teaching and Leadership Development Program for Graduate Teaching Assistants. ASEE'21.

PDF

Yuting W. Chen, Hyun Hannah Choi, Blake Everett Johnson, Mattox Beckman, Lucas Anderson (2019). Board 85: Integrated Engineering Leadership Initiative for Teaching Excellence (iELITE) Year Two: Assessment of Intermediate-Term Outcome for Graduate Teaching Assistant Training. ASEE'19.

PDF Cite DOI

Alexandra Q. Nilles, Chase Gladish, Mattox Beckman, Amy LaViers (2018). Improv: Live Coding for Robot Motion Design. MOCO'18.

PDF DOI

Hyun Hannah Choi, Yuting W. Chen, Mattox Beckman, Lucas Anderson, Blacke Everett Johnson, Matthew Goodman, Chris Migotsky, Nicole Johnson-Glauch (2018). Integrative Engineering Leadership Initiative for Teaching Excellence (iELITE). ASEE'18.

PDF DOI

Mattox Beckman, Sam Kamin (1998). Controlled self-applicable on-line partial evaluation, using strategies. ICCL'98.

PDF DOI

CV

My CV is available in PDF form. (Last updated: March 22, 2021)

Projects

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Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL)
A team-based teaching strategy based on over 20 years of research on how students learn.
Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL)
Specifications Grading
The Future of Grading?
Specifications Grading

Recent & Upcoming Talks

Groups in the Multi-modal Classroom
A discussion of group formation in a multi-modal classroom.
June 10, 2021 14:00 PM — 14:30 PM UIUC
Slides

Contact