An Interactive Web-Based Tool For Teaching Computer Programming

Amal Abdel-Raouf

doi:10.24297/ijct.v15i11.4368

Abstract

Lab time dedicated to programming practice in most schools is typically not sufficient for students to succeed as professional programmers. In this paper, we introduce an interactive tool for teaching computer programming. The tool can be used outside the classroom as it is web-based, can be easily integrated with any management learning environment such as BlackBoard, and provides better opportunities for distance learning and online education programs. The tool engages students as active learners and considers student learning styles to effectively improve the learning process. Our experimental study shows that using our tool significantly increased the achievement percentage of our class learning outcomes.

Highlights

Teaching computer programming is a challenge as students need to comprehend the theoretical concepts but must practice programming using software programming languages
We considered all of these factors in addition to achieving the learning outcomes of the computer programming course
The improvement percentage was minor for the first three learning outcomes as the concepts tend to be easy at the beginning of the semester and the achievement level was satisfying without using the tool

Summary

Introduction

Teaching computer programming is a challenge as students need to comprehend the theoretical concepts but must practice programming using software programming languages. Students tend to make many errors when they start to learn programming; especially problematic are compilation errors because they are not understood or fixed. This creates a barrier between students and programming, which in turn can cause them to drop the class and hurts the students’ retention rate. Afterwards, many web-based tools were implemented with the advantage of including multimedia components to engage students. These tools were not adaptive according to the definition of Brusilovsky in (Brusilovsky, 2003). The first adaptive electronic textbook was introduced in (Brusilovsky et al, 1998)

Results

Discussion

Conclusion