Tools for teaching introductory programming

Powers, Kris; Gross, Paul; Cooper, Steve; McNally, Myles; Goldman, Kenneth J.; Proulx, Viera K.; Carlisle, Martin C.

doi:10.1145/1121341.1121514

Cited by 35 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Previous research in computing education has mainly focused either on students' learning of theory or their learning of practice. Areas that have been researched are for example students' understanding of key concepts (Booth 1992;Berglund 2005;Boustedt 2010), students' ability to read, write, design, and debug code (Eckerdal et al 2006;Fitzgerald et al 2008;Lister et al 2004Lister et al , 2009, and students' use of technology-based resources (Powers et al 2006;Valentine 2004). Despite the extensive body of research concerning learning of programming, the problem persists.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relating theory and practice in laboratory work: a variation theoretical study

Eckerdal

2014

Studies in Higher Education

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Computer programming education has practice-oriented as well as theory-oriented learning goals. Here, lab work plays an important role in students' learning. It is however widely reported that many students face great difficulties in learning theory as well as practice. This paper investigates the important but problematic relation between the learning of theory and the learning of practice for novice programming students. A phenomenographic and variation theoretical analysis on novice students' understanding of concepts is combined with a variation theoretical analysis on students' programming activities. It is shown that different levels of practical proficiency as well as different levels of conceptual understandings are related to dimensions of variation. The paper proposes a way to describe how students' learning of practice and concepts are related. In this way it extends traditional use of phenomenography and variation theory by discussing students' learning of practice as well as concepts, and specifically how these relate.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relating theory and practice in laboratory work: a variation theoretical study

Eckerdal

2014

Studies in Higher Education

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“…The main focus to improve learning of programming has been on learning technologies and techniques like developing and evaluating software tools ( [14], [15], and [16]). Still the problems remain.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning Practice and Theory in Programming Education: Students' Lived Experience

Berglund

Eckerdal

2015

2015 International Conference on Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering

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Abstract-In learning to program, there is a complex interplay between the learning of practice (what to write, how to read compiler messages, etc.) and the learning of theory (what programming constructs are good for, how they "work", how the programme executes etc.). Our on-going project focuses on this interplay -normally not directly visible for the learners themselves -and offers insights about the complexity of the learning process. From a micro-level analysis of video films of students' collaboration in lab sessions, we follow how the students attention moves from one aspect to another (theoretical or practical), and then further, until, in good cases, we can document that a meaningful learning has taken place. Theoretically the project takes its point of departure in a framework, inspired by the roots of phenomenography and variation theory. Theory and practice are here interpreted from a pragmatic perspective, close to the students' (and, as we believe, most programmers) intuitive understanding and use of the terms. The ultimate aim of the project is to support teachers and teaching institutions to teach programming in such ways that students better learn how to program. That is, the project takes its point of departure in the disciplinary learning -the learning of programming -and aims to propose possible improvements in our teaching, by building on the insights gained by the microanalyses of the students' learning. In this paper we illustrate, from an example, how the research process leads us from microlevel observations on how the students attentions move from different aspects (both theoretical and practical) of the half-ready computer program they aim to finalize, over our analysis of the lab sessions, to some insights in the complex interplay between theory and practice in programming students' learning process.

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“…Narrative tools, visual programming tools, flow-model tools, specialized output realizations, and tiered language tools are the categories that the tools were divided into [20]. Visualization is advantageous for learning many programming concepts in computer science education, which is why they have been used for long period of time [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%