Peer‐to‐Peer Instruction in a Programming Course

Abstract

The way programming is taught—individual students creating small, self-contained programs—and the way programming is normally accomplished—teams integrating code into complex applications, with emphasis on reuse—differ significantly (Prey, 1995). Compounding the problem, what employers want from management information systems (MIS) graduates appears to be still different. As an example, each of us participated in a different series of focus groups, consisting of dozens of information technology (IT) managers and recruiters, seeking to identify what outcomes were desired from an MIS undergraduate program. The results were strikingly similar, even though separated by nearly a decade (1992 to 2002). Employers demanded fundamental skills—communications, ability to work effectively in teams, general problem solving—skills more general than technological. The disconnect between curricula, practice, and job skills, summarized in Table 1, presents MIS educators with a serious dilemma. On the one hand, an MIS program is constrained to offer a substantial amount of technical content. On the other, such a program advertises itself as being in tune with the workplace. One possible way to reconcile these diverse agendas is through a course with rigorous technical content employing a pedagogy based on encouraging peer-topeer learning, a well-accepted principle of undergraduate education (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). This brief summarizes how such peer-to-peer learning has been incorporated into introductory programming courses in two separate undergraduate MIS programs.