Computer programming is the heart of computing education. It is a fundamental skill that all computing students are required to learn. However, programming courses are generally considered among the most difficult course and often have the highest dropout rates. The main concern is what concerns of computing faculty is to improve students’ motivation in getting involved in meaningful programming activities. This requires special skills to teach programming. A teacher training workshop was arranged at Directorate of Staff Development for newly inducted Computer Science teachers. The workshop covers various approaches proposed in literature for teaching computer programming. Some useful guidelines have also been suggested. These are the slides of this workshop.

1. Prof. Dr. M. A. Pasha
Chairman
Department of CS & IT
University of Sargodha

2. Computer Programming
Computer programming is not just programming
language syntax and using a development
environment. At its core, computer programming is
solving problems.
Key Objectives should be:
 Making students able to apply an appropriate problem-
solving method for developing an algorithmic solution
to a problem.
 Making students aware of some of the basic ethical
issues confronting computing professionals.

3. Phases of Problem Solving

4. Phases of Computer Programming
Problem-Solving Phase
1. Analysis and Specification. Understand (define) the
problem and what the solution must do.
2. General Solution (Algorithm). Specify the required data
types and the logical sequences of steps that solve the
problem.
3. Verify. Follow the steps exactly to see if the solution really
does solve the problem.
Implementation Phase
1. Concrete Solution (Program). Translate the algorithm (the general
solution) into a programming language.
2. Test. Have the computer follow the instructions. Then manually check the
results. If you find errors, analyze the program and the algorithm to determine
the source of the errors, and then make corrections.
Maintenance Phase
1. Use. Use the program.
2. Maintain. Modify the program to meet changing requirements or to correct
any errors that show up while using it.

5. Example
Problem: Calculate volume of a box of given dimensions
(width, length, height).
 The first step to solving any problem is to decompose the
problem description (syntactic analysis)
 Identify all of the nouns in the sentence (Determine the
volume of a box of given dimensions (width, length, height).
 Eliminate redundant or irrelevant information ( box,
dimensions). Rule of Thumb: eliminate the most general
items.
 Divide the remaining nouns into two categories; Input and
Output
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Inputs: width, length, height
Output: volume
 Identify all of the verbs in the problem statement (processes).
 Calculate

6. Example (cont.)
 Link your inputs, processes, and output
Input
width
length
height
Processing
Calculate
Output
volume
 Use external knowledge to complete your solution
Volume = width * length * height

7. Example (Cont.)
Algorithm Development using Pseudo code
Get length, width, height
Compute volume
volume = length * width * height
Store volume
Display volume

8. Example 2 (Decision Making)

9. Example 3: Looping

10. Convince students not to Adopt
Shortcut

11. Types of Programmers
Types of Students:
 Stoppers: In problematic situation, simply stop and
abandon all hope of solving the problem on their own
 Movers: In problematic situation, keep trying,
modifying their code and use feedback about errors
effectively
 Tinkerers: they are extreme movers. They cannot track
their program, make changes more or less randomly, and
like stoppers do not progress very much in their task.

12. Characteristics of Novice
Programmers (Cont.)
 Limited to surface knowledge of programs and
generally approach programming "line by line" rather
than at the level of bigger program structures.
 Spend little time in planning and testing code, and
when necessary, try to correct their programs with
small local fixes instead of more thoroughly
reformulating programs.
 The knowledge of novices tends to be context specific
rather than general , and
 Often fail to apply correctly the knowledge they have
obtained.

13. Where Lies the Problem?
 The main source of difficulty does not seem to be the
syntax or understanding of concepts, but rather basic
program planning.
 A student can explain what does a pointer do, but still
fails to use it appropriately in a program.
 Students may know the syntax and semantics of
individual statements, but they do not know how to
combine these features into valid programs.

14. Approaches to Teaching
Programming
 Bottom-up: predominantly focuses on teaching of the
details of syntax and implementation of data structures
concepts. (Stereotype approach)
 Top-down: focuses on understanding the abstractions of
classical data structures regardless of their physical
implementation.
 Hard for stereotype teachers to think about the abstract
behavior of the implemented structures.
 Uses components rather than their implementation enable
students to do “interesting” things much earlier than they can
in the B-Up-Approach.
 A program is a collection of large components interacting
with each other rather than a single very long sequence of
basic instructions.

15. Four Approaches to Teaching
Computer Programming
Code Analysis
2. Building Blocks
3. Simple Units
4. Full systems
1.

16. Code Analysis
 Learners learn to analyze and understand existing
code prior to producing their own.
 Learners read and understand programming logic
before writing their own. This approach is based on
the use of pseudocode so it is not programming
language dependent.
 The ability to explain programming logic and code
appears to be a prerequisite for the ability to write
code. ( Campbell and Bolker, 2002); Kölling and
Rosenberg, 2001)

17. Building Blocks
 Learning syntax and semantic before developing
serious application.
 Learners develop an understanding of individual
pieces before combining the pieces to create meaning.
 Language constructs are introduced and understood
one at a time, in isolation, before combining them.
 By combining basic constructs into simple units that
solve small well-defined problems, learners can create
toolboxes of useful and reusable code fragments.

18. Simple Units
 Learners master solutions to small problems before
applying the learned logic to more complex problems.
 The simple units approach is analogous to learning to
speak a language from a phrase book with a limited
vocabulary.

19. Full systems
 Learners design a solution to a non-trivial problem and the
programming concepts and language constructs are
introduced only when the solution to the problem requires
their application.
 For example, a 2-player game of tic-tac-toe could serve as
an introductory problem. To produce this, learners would
need to demonstrate skills in decomposition
(understanding the problem), handling inputs from the
keyboard, displaying outputs in some format, tracking
turns (variables/ assignments), determining availability of
position (selection/conditional), and identifying a winning
move (repetition). The language constructs would be
introduced only when that part of the problem needs to be
solved. (Duke, et al, 2000; Sattar & Lorenzen, 2009).

20. What is Required?
 The art of programming includes
 knowledge of programming tools and languages,
 problem-solving skills, and
 effective strategies for program design and implementation.
 Visualization: Programmers can build solutions both in their
minds and on a computer.
 Skills: code analysis (tracing and explaining), in
understanding block behaviours (tracing and explaining),
in constructing simple units (writing), in combining
simple units to create full systems (writing), debugging.
 Constructivism (Ben-Ari , 1998), Learning theory and
pedagogical methods support this idea.

21. Pedagogical Guideline
 Teacher-centred learning: the teacher transmit knowledge
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and students are passive recipients; teachers put more
emphasis on the knowledge itself rather than developing
students’ learning skills.
Student –centered learning focuses on the students’
learning; knowledge is constructed by students and the
teacher is only a facilitator (Harden and Crosby 2000).
Peer learning methods
Group work
Peer tutoring
E-learning

22. Any Question Please