Guia de planejamento e criação de cursos utilizando EMLs : estudo de caso com um curso introdutório de programação

Trabalho de conclusão de curso (graduação)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Ciências Exatas, Departamento de Ciência da Computação, 2021.Learning Design é o estudo de meios de modelagem de experiências de ensino, podendo esses serem cursos, aulas ou atividades. Este trabalho objetiva ilustrar motivações para aplicação da padronização de artefatos de ensino em instituições, bem como preparar o corpo docente para desempenho da atividade de modelagem em Linguagem de Modelagem Educacional (EML) em padrão IMS Learning Design (IMS LD). Propõe-se então um guia com instruções para modelagem de cursos em IMS LD, exemplificando esse processo com um curso introdutório de programação em linguagem Java de uso direto para instituições de ensino fundamental e médio da rede pública. Esse curso possui atividades de programação por meio visual usando a biblioteca JKarel, um exemplo de atividade desplugada, e uma atividade inspirada na Aprendizagem Baseada em Projetos.Learning Design is the study of ways of modelling learning experiences, those being activities, lessons or entire courses. This paper outlines motives for educational institutions to invest in the formalization of teaching efforts, as well as to prepare the teaching staff to use the Educational Modelling Language (EML) described in the IMS Learning Design (IMS LD) standard. A guide with instructions on the whole process is proposed in this paper, and also an introductory course in Java programming language, used as an example of the application of the guide. The course created for this paper has activities using Visual Based Programming through the JKarel library, an example of an unplugged activity, and one activity inspired in Project-Based Learning

An investigation into student reactions towards rad versus traditional programming environments for novice developers

The traditional approach to programming using text editors is widely used in many institutions to teach introductory programming. These types of traditional programming environments provide fundamental programming concepts for learning, especially in the context of novice developers. In recent years, teaching institutions have seen a trend towards the introduction of visual drag-and-drop rapid application development (RAD) environments for teaching novice programmers. These \u27environments capture student interest in programming by allowing the construction of workable programs within a short time frame based on minimal pre-existing coding knowledge. However, some have argued that these visual RAD environments might not be suitable for providing fundamental programming concepts and syntax to novice developers. This research examines student perceptions towards visual RAD environments in comparison to traditional environments for learning programming for novice developers, mainly focusing on the novice developer\u27s first programming environment. To gather student reactions towards these programming environments, surveys, interviews and workshops were conducted with novice, intermediate and expert level student programmers. The results indicate that while visual RAD environments managed to capture the majority of the participants\u27 interest, the traditional approach was largely accepted as the most appropriate first environment for novice developers. Another finding from this research is the participants\u27 perceptions of the key aspects of learning programming, which also formed part of the deciding factors for the first environment. Understanding the underlying concepts, syntax and logic of the program seem to be the most important aspects followed by interest level and the ability to build workable programs quickly. The majority of participants perceived that traditional programming environments could help novice developers with understanding underlying concepts and syntax better than visual RAD environments. Although visual RAD environments do not require a traditional programming environment at the early stage of programming, the latter would become necessary as the program grows and more complex functions are required. Overall, the visual RAD environment was still the preferred environment for development despite the lack of pedagogical benefits compared with traditional environments

The Design and Evaluation of an Educational Software Development Process for First Year Computing Undergraduates

First year, undergraduate computing students experience a series of well-known challenges when learning how to design and develop software solutions. These challenges, which include a failure to engage effectively with planning solutions prior to implementation ultimately impact upon the students’ competency and their retention beyond the first year of their studies. In the software industry, software development processes systematically guide the development of software solutions through iterations of analysis, design, implementation and testing. Industry-standard processes are, however, unsuitable for novice programmers as they require prior programming knowledge. This study investigates how a researcher-designed educational software development process could be created for novice undergraduate learners, and the impact of this process on their competence in learning how to develop software solutions. Based on an Action Research methodology that ran over three cycles, this research demonstrates how an educational software development methodology (termed FRESH) and its operationalised process (termed CADET which is a concrete implementation of the FRESH methodology), was designed and implemented as an educational tool for enhancing student engagement and competency in software development. Through CADET, students were reframed as software developers who understand the value in planning and developing software solutions, and not as programmers who prematurely try to implement solutions. While there remain opportunities to further enhance the technical sophistication of the process as it is implemented in practice, CADET enabled the software development steps of analysis and design to be explicit elements of developing software solutions, rather than their more typically implicit inclusion in introductory CS courses. The research contributes to the field of computing education by exploring the possibilities of – and by concretely generating – an appropriate scaffolded methodology and process; by illustrating the use of computational thinking and threshold concepts in software development; and by providing a novel evaluation framework (termed AKM-SOLO) to aid in the continuous improvement of educational processes and courses by measuring student learning experiences and competencies