Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!unido!infbs!neitzel
From: neitzel@infbs.uucp (Martin Neitzel)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: How do teach programming?
Message-ID: <1093@infbs.UUCP>
Date: 13 Jan 89 16:13:38 GMT
Sender: news@infbs.UUCP
Reply-To: neitzel@infbs.UUCP (Martin Neitzel)
Organization: TU Braunschweig,Informatik,West Germany
Lines: 38


The CS dept of the Tech. Univ. Braunschweig, FRG, has a project group
investigating ``computer assisted education/instruction for CS
students''.  As a member of this group, I am concerned with the
development of environments/simulators/tools that are aimed at
undergraduates to teach them their first programming language(s).

If you have made any experiences in this area, I want to solicit you
to post them to comp.edu.  [Is this still the proper newsgroup for this
kind of stuff?]  Thank You in advance.

						Martin

Here are some typical questions:

* How should one teach programming?  What tools (computerized or not)
  would you wish from a kind fairy maiden?

* Assuming that your students _have_ to learn how to program in, say,
  Modula-2:  How would you prepare them for this task?  Would you
  introduce some concepts before they get in touch with the actual
  language?  Which ones and How do you do it?

* Should they make their first steps into programming in a different
  language/environment, more suited to introduce basic concepts like
  ``program text'', ``variable'', ``statement'', ect.?  Or would you
  rather start with Modula-2 from scratch?

* How would you value an educational environment for Modula-2, that
  makes visible what is done internally, e.g. the search of a
  declaration along scopes, or the creation of a new local data space
  at procedure invocation?  (I'm not talking about a debugger here,
  and hope you get the idea.)

--
Martin Neitzel,  Techn. Univ. Braunschweig, W.Germany
BITNET/EARN:	neitzel@dbsinf6.bitnet	  (mail via bitnet preferred)
UUCP:		neitzel@infbs.uucp  (unido!infbs!neitzel)