Data structures courses commonly introduce topics involving high levels of abstraction and complexity, requiring significant effort from instructors and students to achieve positive teaching-learning outcomes. Despite...
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Data structures courses commonly introduce topics involving high levels of abstraction and complexity, requiring significant effort from instructors and students to achieve positive teaching-learning outcomes. Despite the multiple studies that have occurred within the Computer Science Education (CS ED) community to understand the experiences that novice programmers may have when learning how to program, there is still a lack of exploration and research on understanding these experiences in scenarios different from first-year Computer Science (CS) courses. Looking further from CS introductory courses, this paper presents the results of a pilot study that evaluated the interaction of a group of CS Colombian students with DStblocks, which is a scaffolded block-based instructional technology created to ease linear data structures understanding. The findings and results of this pilot study are favorable, corresponding to tests centered on user experience and learning impact.
The Data Structures course is common in Systems Engineering and Computer Science programs, providing a fundamental basis for professional training in these disciplines. This course presents a great pedagogical challen...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781450351003
The Data Structures course is common in Systems Engineering and Computer Science programs, providing a fundamental basis for professional training in these disciplines. This course presents a great pedagogical challenge, due to the high complexity in the algorithms studied and the levels of abstraction that it requires. Considering that the traditional pedagogical approach is sometimes not adequate to ease understanding of the structures covered in the course, we propose the development of DStblocks as a playful and visual tool for the design and programming of data structures. Through this document we emphasize the context to be intervened and the problem to be solved, indicating the progress corresponding to the project. At the end we present the work which will be held in a near future, indicating how we are going to measure learning variables according to the project's objectives.
One of the major challenges related to teaching programming and algorithms to novice students is the time spent on the language's syntax and how their attention is incorrectly focused on the syntax rather than the...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781450346108
One of the major challenges related to teaching programming and algorithms to novice students is the time spent on the language's syntax and how their attention is incorrectly focused on the syntax rather than the acquisition of concepts and the development of problem-solving and programming skills. This study focuses on the design and evaluation of a Web App (RoBlock) designed for autodidactic learning. It uses visual blocks programming, and contains six interactive modules that cover programming concepts. The solution is presented as virtual scenarios for Mobile Robotics. RoBlock is structured as a multi-layered architecture, delegating tasks and activities to specific software components. It was deployed in a hybrid manner, with the main system of Virtual Scenarios in Heroku as Cloud platform, and the Remote Laboratory sub-system in a local server configured at the laboratory. The GUI is user-friendly, designed for usability and interaction. It presents video-tutorials designed for self-learning. Forty six novice Colombian students, divided in two groups, participated in the study of RoBlock. Experimental group students used RoBlock while control group students used Scratch [1]. They had to work on four modules: Variables, sensors and conditionals, cycles and iterations, and functions. They were evaluated before and after every session. Four experimental indexes were used to measure knowledge appropriation and software impact in every student during the study. In addition, students who worked with RoBlock were asked to fill out a quality assessment survey, which included questions on positive and negative aspects of the tool. The complete study consisted of five hours of experimental interaction, due to time limitations at the institutions that collaborated on the study. The results on all four experimental indexes were satisfactory. The group exposed to RoBlock reported between 15% and 23% improvement in knowledge acquisition through all the modules (Figure 1).
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