Abstract
Computer programming can help children develop problem solving and analytical skills. Thus, many countries have included computer science in the curriculum of primary school. Given differences in culture, available infrastructures, as well as the age pupils are introduced to computer science, forming a computer science curriculum still remains a challenge. Towards this end, this study focuses on ex-ploring the potential merits of introducing concurrent programming concepts ear-ly in the learning process. The basic premise is that although concurrent pro-gramming at its full details is a rather advanced topic even at university level, it is everyday practice to perform two or more tasks simultaneously that might need (or not) some sort of synchronization. Therefore, the tutor can capitalize on eve-ryday experience to explain basic concepts on concurrency. Such correlation be-tween life experience and concurrent programming challenges may expand the cognitive functions of the pupils and provide them with further background to improve analytical thinking. The proposed curriculum for fifth and sixth grade primary school was adopted in seven classes in Greece. Results indicate that un-initiated to programming pupils at the age of ten (fifth grade) were able to com-prehend basic concurrency topics, while pupils at the age of eleven (sixth grade) with some programming familiarity were able to understand more advanced concepts.
Highlights
Computer programming is considered a basic literacy in the digital age helping children to develop creative problem solving skills, logical thinking and mental flexibility
Motivated by: (i) the apparent “knowledge gap” concerning concurrency that exists on many typical early computer programming syllabuses, (ii) the fact that pupils are accustomed to multitasking in their everyday life and (iii) the importance of multithreading and multitasking in modern software and hardware, this study investigates the enrichment of a typical syllabus with multithreading concurrency issues
According to age and prior knowledge at computer programming the evaluation group exhibited the following characteristics: (i) 55 students were of fifth grade primary school and completely novice to computer programming, (ii) 68 students attended the sixth grade and (iii) among the sixth grade student only 42 had attended a computer programming lab at fifth grade, while 26 were novices
Summary
Computer programming is considered a basic literacy in the digital age helping children to develop creative problem solving skills, logical thinking and mental flexibility. Available infrastructures, as well as the age pupils are introduced to computer science, the challenge of forming a computer science curriculum that offers basic background but expands the cognitive horizon and cultivates the imagination of students, still remains a challenge. The primary educational effort ( in the case of Greece) is tailored towards applying these building blocks into single thread execution scenarios, overlooking scenarios with concurrent multiple threads. The teacher has two practical options: (i) either overlook the problem, diminishing its importance, and continue focusing on single thread correctness criteria, or, (ii) attempt to give a thorough explanation of the reasons of such “unexpected behavior”, introducing concurrency issues to pupils, albeit in an ad-hoc, unstructured and unplanned manner which might prove discouraging
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