Introductory computer science students rely on a trial and error approach to fixing errors and debugging for too long. Moving to a reflection in action strategy can help students become more successful. Traditional programming assignments are usually assessed in a way that ignores the skills needed for reflection in action, but software testing promotes the hypothesis-forming and experimental validation that are central to this mode of learning. By changing the way assignments are assessed--where students are responsible for demonstrating correctness through testing, and then assessed on how well they achieve this goal--it is possible to reinforce desired skills. Automated feedback can also play a valuable role in encouraging students while also showing them where they can improve.

Using software testing to move students from trial-and-error to reflection-in-action

Despite our best efforts and intentions as educators, student programmers continue to struggle in acquiring comprehension and analysis skills. Students believe that once a program runs on sample data, it is correct; most programming errors are reported by the compiler; when a program misbehaves, shuffling statements and tweaking expressions to see what happens is the best debugging approach. This paper presents a new vision for computer science education centered around the use of test-driven development in all programming assignments, from the beginning of CS1. A key element to the strategy is comprehensive, automated evaluation of student work, in terms of correctness, the thoroughness and validity of the student's tests, and an automatic coding style assessment performed using industrial-strength tools. By systematically applying the strategy across the curriculum as part of a student's regular programming activities, and by providing rapid, concrete, useful feedback that students find valuable, it is possible to induce a cultural shift in how students behave.

Rethinking computer science education from a test-first perspective

The fundamentals of software testing and related activities are often elusive in undergraduate curricula. A direct consequence of the lack of software testing efforts during education is the huge losses suffered by the software industry when applications are not sufficiently tested. Software practitioners have exhorted faculty members and institutions to teach more software testing in universities. The purpose of this research is to provide answers to the needs of such practitioners and introduce software-testing activities throughout the curriculum. The most important goal is to introduce software-testing education without requiring a significant amount of extra effort on behalf of faculty members or teaching assistants. The approach taken comprises the development of the Web-based Center for Automated Testing (Web-CAT) and the introduction of test-driven development (TDD) in courses. Web-CAT serves as a learning environment for software testing tasks and helps automatically assess student assignments. A comparison of student programs developed using Web-CAT with historical records indicated a significant decrease in the number of bugs in submitted programs. Undergraduate students also received exposure to the principles of software testing and were able to write test cases that were on an average better than those generated by an automated test case generator designed specifically for the assignment.

Web-CAT: A Web-based Center for Automated Testing

An excellent method for introducing students to computer programming was described by Richard E. Pattis in his book Karel the Robot. By initially limiting the student’s language repertoire to easily grasped imperative commands whose actions are visually displayed, the Karel approach quickly and eortlessly introduces the student to such concepts as procedures and the major control structures. However, some who have used the technique as a \quick-start" introduction to programming have noted some problems in the transition from using the Karel language to the conventional language used for the rest of the course (e.g. Pascal). By embedding the Karel programming paradigm in a conventional language, we have been able to eliminate these transition problems while retaining the pedagogical merits and spirit of Karel. This paper provides a brief review of the Karel the Robot programming paradigm, considers the transition problems, describes our novel use of Karel in a conventional language, and informally presents the results of using our version of Karel.

https://cs.mtsu.edu/~untch/karel/karel90.pdf

Teaching Programming Using the Karel the Robot Paradigm Realized with a Conventional Language

Modern programming paradigms have brought many different challenges for visually impaired programmers. Graphical interfaces have become one of the biggest obstacles for visually impaired programming professionals. The same problems that relate to visually impaired programmers also apply to programming education in which it is very challenging to make educational interfaces accessible for visually impaired and for other students with disabilities. In order to make programming more suitable for students with visual impairment an educational system that enables voice-based control of its elements has been developed for the purpose of their programming education. The results of using this kind of system and its impact on visually impaired students are presented and discussed in this paper.

Making programming education more accessible for visually impaired

At last year's SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, we were struck by three things. First, many people were struggling with how to best teach introductory computer science to a population that is predominantly not potential computer science majors (1). Second, there is great value in the exchange of information about how we are attacking the problem, why we chose this path, and how we feel it's working (2). Third, motivation is a key element in learning (3). Many things we heard last year acted as a catalyst for us to make some changes in the core computer science course (Comp Sci 100) at the Air Force Academy. In this paper, we discuss these changes and offer a candid, but preliminary, evaluation of our success in serving the needs of a large and diverse student population.

Computer science in the Air Force Academy core curriculum

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Computer science in the Air Force Academy core curriculum