Steve Shaffer wrote:

> According to Arzarello, Chiappini, Lemut, Marara, and Pellery (1993),
> an important part of learning to program is the "sudden transition
> from simple computational attempts to the synthesis of the whole in a
> procedure or program" (p. 289).  However, a significant percentage of
> students may not be able to make this leap, as exemplified by the
> bimodal distribution of grades in programming classes, where some
> students seem to "get it" while others "just don't get it" (Hudak and
> Anderson, 1990).  Applying Piagetian theory may supply an answer to
> this conundrum, specifically involving concrete versus formal
> operations stages of development.  The latter stage "entails grasping
> the logic of all possible combinations of items or events, developing
> a combinatorial system, and unifying operations into a structured
> whole... data indicate that as many as 50% or more of college
> students are not formal operators.. [some] express alarm, arguing
> that the use of nonformal operational thinking by college students is
> increasing, and propose methods for promoting stage advancement"
> (Hudak, M. and Anderson, D., 1990, p. 231).

We have actually done that for our introductory programming students and
found  - much to our surprise- that there were no statistically
significant correlation between their development level and the outcome
of the programming course - see Bennedsen, J. and Caspersen, M. E. 2006.
Abstraction ability as an indicator of success for learning
object-oriented programming?. SIGCSE Bull. 38, 2 (Jun. 2006), 39-43.
DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1138403.1138430


> A big problem is how to mass-produce this cognitive apprenticeship; I
> have 52 students in each of my introductory programming classes;
> there is no time for one-on-one instruction.  I do try to model
> "programming behavior" by solving problems real-time on an overhead
> projector; I don't prepare the demonstration problem solutions ahead
> of time, but solve them with the students watching -- including
> forgotten semicolons and all.  I also verbalize my thought process
> while solving the problem.  This is the closest I've been able to
> come to mass-producing cognitive apprenticeship.

Agree. As an extra way of exposing the programming process we use
"process recordings" - video recordings of an "expert's" solution of a
programming exercise. We have written a little about them - see
Bennedsen, J. and Caspersen, M. E. 2005. Revealing the programming
process. SIGCSE Bull. 37, 1 (Feb. 2005), 186-190. DOI=
http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1047124.1047413

Jens Bennedsen, it-west, networking universities


----------------------------------------------------------------------
PPIG Discuss List (discuss@ppig.org)
Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce
PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/

Reply via email to