Teaching a Java-based CS1 course in an academically-diverse environment

Abstract

The Texas Christian University (TCU) Computer Science Department was established in 1981. From the outset, the Department's CS1 course has presented significant teaching challenges due to the wide diversity of student's taking the class. Traditionally, only 25-35% of the students enrolled in the course are computing science majors, the remaining being students from a wide diversity of disciplines, many of which are non-science based. Despite the diversity, it has been necessary for the course, and its content, to be structured to satisfy essential core requirements for students majoring in computer science and computer information science as well as to meet program requirements for the many non-computer science majors taking the course. This paper discusses some of the unique issues associated with teaching a Java-based CS1 course to a very diverse group of students, the majority of which have very unsophisticated problem solving skills, and little or no programming expertise. A representative set of experiments and programming assignments are included.