Development of a Programming Course for Students of a Teacher Training Higher Education Institution Using the Programming Language Python

At present, teaching programming to future teachers is superficial or is excluded from computer science curricular. Only programming fundamentals are taught during computer studies, and skills acquired during the training are not applied in practice. The aims of this article are 1) to develop a programming course for teacher training disciplines that are taught in training units of the Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University (NEFU), and 2) give recommendations to apply features of the programming language Python in the professional activities of future teachers. This work applies the iterative methodological approach to undertake the study in various groups of students of NEFU from 2016 to 2019. Quantitative and objective indicators are used. Results show which modules of Python are the most appropriate for students to study for their future professional teaching activities. The training course "Use of the language Python by future teachers" is developed, and will be taught in all training units of the university, that have teacher training disciplines. The article determines a direction of future research related to teaching programming, which is important for all computer studies

Desarrollo de un curso de programación para estudiantes de una institución de educación superior de formación docente utilizando el lenguaje de programación Python

At present, teaching programming to future teachers is superficial or is excluded from computer science curricular. Only programming fundamentals are taught during computer studies, and skills acquired during the training are not applied in practice. The aims of this article are 1) to develop a programming course for teacher training disciplines that are taught in training units of the Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University (NEFU), and 2) give recommendations to apply features of the programming language Python in the professional activities of future teachers. This work applies the iterative methodological approach to undertake the study in various groups of students of NEFU from 2016 to 2019. Quantitative and objective indicators are used. Results show which modules of Python are the most appropriate for students to study for their future professional teaching activities. The training course "Use of the language Python by future teachers" is developed, and will be taught in all training units of the university, that have teacher training disciplines. The article determines a direction of future research related to teaching programming, which is important for all computer studies.En la actualidad, la programación de enseñanza para futuros maestros es superficial o está excluida del plan de estudios de informática. Solo se enseñan los fundamentos de programación durante los estudios de computación, y las habilidades adquiridas durante la capacitación no se aplican en la práctica. Los objetivos de este artículo son 1) desarrollar un curso de programación para disciplinas de capacitación docente que se imparten en unidades de capacitación de la Universidad Federal del Nordeste de Ammosov (NEFU), y 2) dar recomendaciones para aplicar características del lenguaje de programación Python en el Actividades profesionales de futuros docentes. Este trabajo aplica el enfoque metodológico iterativo para llevar a cabo el estudio en varios grupos de estudiantes de NEFU de 2016 a 2019. Se utilizan indicadores cuantitativos y objetivos. Los resultados muestran qué módulos de Python son los más apropiados para que los estudiantes estudien para sus futuras actividades de enseñanza profesional. El curso de capacitación "Uso del lenguaje Python por futuros maestros" se desarrolla y se impartirá en todas las unidades de capacitación de la universidad que tengan disciplinas de capacitación docente. Elartículo determina una dirección de investigación futura relacionada con la programación de enseñanza, que es importante para todos los estudios de computación

Evidence for Programming Strategies in University Coding Exercises

Success in coding exercises is deeply related to the strategy employed by the students to solve coding tasks. In this contribution, we analyze the programming assignments of 600 students from an introductory university course in object-oriented programming. The students were provided unit tests for the assessment of their code, and their editing and testing actions were recorded using an Eclipse plug-in. The primary motivation for this study is to discover the programming strategies used by students for coding exercises with different difficulty levels, and find out if any relation exists between these strategies and the success in solving the coding tasks. More insights into this process will enable educators to provide future students timely, appropriate and constructive feedback on their coding process. Thus, to predict success in the coding exercises, we used indicators from students’ testing behaviour reflecting the time and effort differences between two successive unit test runs. The results show a clear difference in the strategies employed by students within different success levels. The results also highlight ways of providing actionable feedback to the students in a timely and appropriate manner