Experience report

Abstract

Goal-directed problem-solving labs can lead a student to believe that the most important achievement in a first programming course is to get programs working. This is counter to research indicating that code comprehension is an important developmental step for novice programmers. We observed this in our own CS-0 introductory programming course, and furthermore, that students weren't making the connection between code comprehension in labs and a final examination that required solutions to pencil-and-paper comprehension and writing exercises, where sound understanding of programming concepts is essential. Realising these deficiencies late in our course, we put on three 3-hour optional revision evenings just days before the exam.Based on a mastery learning philosophy, students were expected to work through a bank of around 200 penciland-paper exercises. By comparison with a machine-based hackathon, we called this a Thinkathon. Students completed a pre and post questionnaire about their experience of the Thinkathon. While we find that Thinkathon attendance positively influences final grades, we believe our reflection on the overall experience is of greater value. We report that: respected methods for developing code comprehension may not be enough on their own; novices must exercise their developing skills away from machines; and there are social learning outcomes in programming courses, currently implicit, that we should make explicit.

Enhancing postgraduate students’ technical skills: perceptions of modified team-based learning in a six-week multi-subject Bootcamp-style CS course

“…Hands-on practice on computers only takes place in the lab sessions. The idea of using just a pencil and paper to solve these problems comes from other studies that highlight the lack of students' sound conceptual understanding in programming (Cutts et al, 2019;Sudol-DeLyser et al, 2012).…”

“…The students had to use a pencil and paper only. To enhance computational thinking skills, an important development step in programming is code comprehension using exercises (Cutts et al, 2019), including the ones mentioned in this paper. Computational thinking is a foundational competency for problem-solving in STEM education (Grover & Pea, 2018).…”

“…Computational thinking is a foundational competency for problem-solving in STEM education (Grover & Pea, 2018). However, one of the issues identified in the literature of CS is the misleading aspect of goal-directed problem-solving labs, which let the novice student believe that the most important achievement in programming is to get programs working (Cutts et al, 2019). Cutts et al found that using pencil-and-paper exercises, away from computers, novices were able to develop their skills.…”

A Blended Learning Approach for an Introductory Computer Science Course

“…Additionally, the "I got it working" mentality cannot be our primary goal, and we would like to foster a profound understanding of programming principles in students. In [23], the authors have developed a "thinkathon" to address this problem. It consists of sets of pen-and-paper exercises to master programming principles and fine details and be worked on together with tutors during rather long sessions.…”