Creativity in CS1: A Literature Review

Computer science is a fast-growing field in today’s digitized age, and working in this industry often requires creativity and innovative thought. An issue within computer science education, however, is that large introductory programming courses often involve little opportunity for creative thinking within coursework. The undergraduate introductory programming course (CS1) is notorious for its poor student performance and retention rates across multiple institutions. Integrating opportunities for creative thinking may help combat this issue by adding a personal touch to course content, which could allow beginner CS students to better relate to the abstract world of programming. Research on the role of creativity in computer science education (CSE) is an interesting area with a lot of room for exploration due to the complexity of the phenomenon of creativity as well as the CSE research field being fairly new compared to some other education fields where this topic has been more closely explored. To contribute to this area of research, this article provides a literature review exploring the concept of creativity as relevant to computer science education and CS1 in particular. Based on the review of the literature, we conclude creativity is an essential component to computer science, and the type of creativity that computer science requires is in fact, a teachable skill through the use of various tools and strategies. These strategies include the integration of open-ended assignments, large collaborative projects, learning by teaching, multimedia projects, small creative computational exercises, game development projects, digitally produced art, robotics, digital story-telling, music manipulation, and project-based learning. Research on each of these strategies and their effects on student experiences within CS1 is discussed in this review. Last, six main components of creativity-enhancing activities are identified based on the studies about incorporating creativity into CS1. These components are as follows: Collaboration, Relevance, Autonomy, Ownership, Hands-On Learning, and Visual Feedback. The purpose of this article is to contribute to computer science educators’ understanding of how creativity is best understood in the context of computer science education and explore practical applications of creativity theory in CS1 classrooms. This is an important collection of information for restructuring aspects of future introductory programming courses in creative, innovative ways that benefit student learning.

From Critique to Computational Thinking: A Peer-Assessment-Supported Problem Identification, Flow Definition, Coding, and Testing Approach for Computer Programming Instruction

Scholars believe that computational thinking is one of the essential competencies of the 21st century and computer programming courses have been recognized as a potential means of fostering students’ computational thinking. In tradition instruction, PFCT (problem identification, flow definition, coding, and testing) is a commonly adopted procedure to guide students to learn and practice computer programming. However, without further guidance, students might focus on learning the syntax of computer programming language rather than the concept of solving problems. This study proposes a peer-assessment-supported PFCT (PA-PFCT) approach for boosting students’ computer programming knowledge and computational thinking awareness. A quasi-experiment was conducted on a computer programming course in a high school to evaluate its influence on students’ learning achievement, computational thinking awareness, learning motivation, and self-efficacy. An experimental group of 51 students learned with the proposed approach, while a control group of 49 students learned with the traditional PFCT (T-PFCT) approach. The experimental results show that the proposed approach significantly enhanced the students’ computational thinking awareness, learning motivation, and self-efficacy, while not having significant impacts on their computer programming knowledge test scores.

ANALISIS KEBUTUHAN PENGEMBANGAN VIDEO PEMBELAJARAN MATA KULIAH PROGRAM LINIER

Linear Programming is a course under the scope of algebra that must be mastered by mathematics education students. The low ability to solve linear programming problems can affect student performance when they become a teacher. This study aims to analyze the need for developing learning videos in Linear Programming courses for students of the Mathematics Education Study Program. The method used is development research which consists of Preliminary Analysis, Product Prototype, and Assessment. The research subjects were 30 students in the 7th semester of mathematics education and had attended online Linear Programming lectures in the previous semester. Data were collected by conducting written tests, questionnaires, and interviews and analyzed quantitatively descriptively. The results of the written test analysis showed that the students' ability to solve linear programming problems was low. Based on interviews, it is also known that students are not enough just to learn through modules and virtual meetings. Students tend to need learning videos/records to repeat explanations when studying the material independently. Therefore, there is a great need for learning videos that can optimize online learning of Linear Programming courses.

ANALISIS KEBUTUHAN PENGEMBANGAN VIDEO PEMBELAJARAN MATA KULIAH PROGRAM LINIER

Linear Programming is a course under the scope of algebra that must be mastered by mathematics education students. The low ability to solve linear programming problems can affect student performance when they become a teacher. This study aims to analyze the need for developing learning videos in Linear Programming courses for students of the Mathematics Education Study Program. The method used is development research which consists of Preliminary Analysis, Product Prototype, and Assessment. The research subjects were 30 students in the 7th semester of mathematics education and had attended online Linear Programming lectures in the previous semester. Data were collected by conducting written tests, questionnaires, and interviews and analyzed quantitatively descriptively. The results of the written test analysis showed that the students' ability to solve linear programming problems was low. Based on interviews, it is also known that students are not enough just to learn through modules and virtual meetings. Students tend to need learning videos/records to repeat explanations when studying the material independently. Therefore, there is a great need for learning videos that can optimize online learning of Linear Programming courses.

Introduction to Computer Programming Through a System of Tasks

Computer programming is a fundamental discipline in many academic programs, especially in the fields of informatics, applied mathematics, physics, and engineering. Despite its popularity, computer programming courses does not possess a widely-accepted methodology for its structure, and because of this reason, even introductory courses highly differ in their curriculum, approach, complexity, and even technical background. In this paper we propose a methodology for introductory computer programming course structure definition that is based on the concept of notion formation through a system of tasks. The approach is intended to be applied in the context of academic education, but it is also applicable in the last years of high-school courses.

Meaningful Programming Learning Using Technology Integration: Implementation And Application Level

Technology integration involves a combination of applications, media, systems, approaches and techniques guided by information and communication technology to increase student engagement and effectiveness of learning comprehension. Programming learning encounters a specific challenge related to students’ limited opportunities in dealing with real cases leading to inconsistent development of their interests and potentials. The integration of technology has a potential to provide a solution to this problem, but insuitable use of technology hinders students to gain meaningful learning and develop confidence in solving problems. This study develops a framework in the implementation of technology integration to promote meaningful learning for undergraduate students of programming courses. The study also measures the level of frequency and use of technology integration in meaningful learning of programming courses. The study identifies five main elements through literature to develop a framework namely learning technology, skills, application of technology, meaningful learning and contextual learning. Next, the measurement of the level of frequency and use of technology integration involves a sample of 109 undergraduate students in a programming course through stratified random sampling. The research framework is expected to provide guidance on the implementation of technology integration in meaningful programming learning and to measure the relevant elements. The findings of the study are expected to help educators and administrators to adopt and improve technology integration in meaningful learning for programming courses.

Analysis of MOOC on Programming for IT Specialist Training

The article provides a quantitative analysis of online programming courses on such platforms as Alison, Udemy, Edx, Coursera, Udacity, Codecademy as of July 2021. The authors analyzed the number of courses that can be found either in thematic sections or by automatic keyword search. It was found that students can find 6,979 online programming courses on the analyzed platforms with the help of thematic sections. The Udemy platform provides the largest number of programming courses. Popular programming languages which have the largest number of online courses turned out to be Python, JavaScript and Java.

The Optimization of Classroom Teaching in Colleges and Universities Based on Network Topology

In order to improve the teaching effect of programming courses, this article applies network topology to the construction of programming course teaching platform system and constructs a teaching framework combined with intelligent teaching mode. In addition, this article takes the opportunistic social network composed of mobile smart terminal devices as the application background and briefly introduces the concept, characteristics, and application scenarios of the opportunistic social network. In addition, the typical message forwarding algorithm currently studied in this paper is analyzed. Taking into account the social attributes and forwarding willingness of nodes, in order to increase the message transmission rate and reduce message transmission delay and network overhead, two message transmission strategies are proposed to improve the operating effect of the programming course teaching platform. Finally, this paper verifies the effectiveness of the network topology in the teaching of the algorithm and programming of the intelligent teaching mode through experimental research.

I know what you coded last summer

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic caused a surge in enrollments in online courses. Consequently, this boost in numbers of students affected teachers ability to evaluate exercises and resolve doubts. In this context, tools designed to evaluate and provide feedback on code solutions can be used in programming courses to reduce teachers workload. Nonetheless, even with using such tools, the literature shows that learning how to program is a challenging task. Programming is complex and the programming language employed can also affect students outcomes. Thus, designing good exercises can reduce students difficulties in identifying the problem and help reduce syntax challenges. This research employs learning analytics processes on automatic evaluation tools interaction logs and code solutions to find metrics capable of identifying problematic exercises and their difficulty. In this context, an exercise is considered problematic if students have problems interpreting its description or its solution requires complex programming structures like loops, conditionals and recursion. The data comes from online introductory programming courses. Results show that the computed metrics can identify problematic exercises, as well as those that are being challenging.