Teaching programming course elective: A new teaching and learning experience

Abstract

Some of the major challenges of teaching programming course as an elective are spending more time on syntax coverage, lack of hands on session or practical sessions and less number of credits allotted for the course. It is extremely hard for any programming elective subject to attain the course outcomes because of huge variation in the students background, constraints of allotting less number of credits and traditional classroom teaching. The solution to this dilemma is provided by hands on session tutorials that transforms and enhances traditional classroom teaching. We proposed, refined the curriculum, and tested for teaching first elective course in programming languages. In this paper we present the effectiveness of teaching programming elective subject by introducing ”Hands on Sessions” and redesigning our curriculum to meet stakeholders requirements. Our results presented in this paper indicate that incorporating ”Hands on Sessions” in teaching programming elective subject is an effective tool to attain the learning outcomes of the course. In addition, new teaching methodology enhances the students problem solving skills and improves self learning ability.