Step-by-step formation of mental actions when teaching programming for schoolchildren

Abstract

The use of a set of tasks developed in accordance with the basic provisions of the theory of step-by-step formation of mental actions in teaching programming to schoolchildren makes it possible to improve the quality of learning. At the first stage of the discovery of the algorithm, it is advisable to offer students a set of tasks and questions that will contribute to the independent identification of the orientation basis of the action. The tasks for filling in the trace table for specific numeric data correspond to the stage of the materialized action. At the stage of forming an action in external speech, students can be offered exercises to work with the formulation of the algorithm; for this, you can use tasks "with omissions" in the verbal description of the algorithm, tasks to establish the correspondence of the verbal description of the algorithm and the lines of the program code. The translation of the action into external speech "to yourself" will be facilitated by tasks to find an error in solving the problem, filling in a gap in the program code. To automate the described mental action, it is necessary for schoolchildren to perform a sufficient number of standard tasks for writing a program. To further develop the skill of applying the algorithm, it is necessary to use tasks in which this algorithm is one of the solution stages.