Faculty DirectoryConnor Bain
Assistant Professor of Instruction
Contact
2145 Sheridan RdTech L374
Evanston, IL 60208-3109
Email Connor Bain
Website
Departments
Education
PhD in Computer Science and Learning Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
BSCS in Computer Science (Hons), University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC
BS in Mathematics (Hons), University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC
Research Interests
My research lies at the intersection of computer science and the learning sciences and focuses on 1. cognitive studies of computer science learners; 2. teacher learning and practice (specifically pedagogical content knowledge); 3. agent-based modeling in educational contexts. I often advise undergraduate, masters, and doctoral research projects adjacent to these areas in addition to those focused on computer science education, teacher professional development, and AI in education.
In the CS Department at NU, I teach both at the intro and upper-level but specialize in large course coordination. My COMP_SCI 111 Fundamentals of Computer Programming I course routinely has 400+ engineering and other STEM major students enrolled while COMP_SCI 110 Introduction to Computer Programming usually has around 300 students from majors across the university. My upper-level seminar courses tend to focus on CS Pedagogy, communication, and cognitive aspects of computer science education. As a CS+LS Affiliate faculty member, I often teach courses cross listed in both departments like COMP_SCI and LRN_SCI 372/472.
Since 2025, I've also served as the Faculty Chair of Willard Residential College (Northwestern's largest and most storied residential college).
Selected Publications
Arastoopour Irgens, G., Dabholkar, S., Bain, C., Woods, P., Hall, K., Swanson, H., ... and Wilensky, U. (2020). Modeling and measuring high school students’ computational thinking practices in science. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 29(1), 137-161.
Kelter, J., Peel, A., Bain, C., Anton, G., Dabholkar, S., Horn, M. S., and Wilensky, U. (2021). Constructionist co‐design: A dual approach to curriculum and professional development. British Journal of Educational Technology, 52(3), 1043-1059.
Bain, C., Anton, G., Horn, M., and Wilensky, U. (2020, June). Back to computational transparency: Co-designing with teachers to integrate computational thinking in science classrooms. In International conference of the learning sciences (No. Jun-2020).
Wu, S., Peel, A., Bain, C., Anton, G., Horn, M., and Wilensky, U. (2020, April). Workshops and co-design can help teachers integrate computational thinking into their k-12 stem classes. In Proceedings of international conference on computational thinking education 2020.
Martin, K., Wang, E. Q., Bain, C., and Worsley, M. (2019, October). Computationally augmented ethnography: Emotion tracking and learning in museum games. In International Conference on Quantitative Ethnography (pp. 141-153). Cham: Springer International Publishing.