Inspiration, Strategies and Insight for Learning Programming Language

This study explores how the first-year undergraduate students in School of Engineering, Kathmandu University learns their very first programming language i.e. C programming. The students were requested to response to an online questioner, where they were asked about their perception about the programming language they are learning, their motivation on learning that particular language and their strategy on preparing for the subject. Student’s concept on C programming and their approach for preparing for the exam are categorized. Our results show what kind of different strategies they use to learn this particular programming language. Additionally, the insights of this paper point that learning theory of programming and practicing programming goes hand in hand in C programming course and the focus here is on learning difficult topics which involves investigating students perceptions and conceptions of causality in relation to learning difficulties (Berglund et al., 2009). This study is intended to be helpful for future teachers and students in programming courses in Nepal.

Teaching C++ as a First Programming Language

Nowadays, most C++ introductory courses begin by studying the procedural constructs of C language, following the imperative-first strategy described in CC2001 [7]. While this has been a successful approach in the near past, our experience shows that it does not lead to the development of skills to create a good C++ code. That’s why in recent years we’ve been teaching C++ to beginners in a totally different way – with avoidance of C-style strings and raw arrays; delayed introduction to pointers (just after references); polymorphism with references instead of pointers; smart pointers instead of raw pointers; early use of standard library features, and writing modern C++ from day one.

Fostering Motivation and Improving Student Performance in an introductory programming course: An Integrated Teaching Approach

This paper expands a teaching proposal presented at the Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Conference, in 2016. The proposal provides an integrated teaching approach for improving students’ performance in a first programming course. The approach is based on four main components: the use of Python as first programming language, project-oriented and problem-based learning, multimedia resources, and assessment rubrics. Material and learning resources for the course development are available on virtual platforms. Our findings suggest that the approach enhanced students’ academic performance, as can be seen in their grades, as well as a decrease in dropout rates.