Computer Science Made Easy

1
Computer Science Made Easy?

• J. Philip East
• Computer Science Department
• University of Northern Iowa
• east_at_cs.uni.edu
• Some students want to explore computer science
  but not commit to the intense introductory major
  course. Some students lack intellectual skills
  to succeed (in 1st attempt) in regularly-paced
  programming course. Let's discuss ideas for
  accomplishing both these goals in a single course.

2
Course Goals

• Computer Science Made Easy
• Student difficulty in CS-I
• Recruitment/diversity
• Explore/examine skills needed for programming
• (Am hoping to get feedback and suggestions from
  you)

3
Exploring C.S. Programming

• One credit college course (6-9 week high school
  course?)
• Course rationale/purpose
• Provide exploration of computer science
• Provide computer use skills
• Be low stress
• Develop pre-programming skills
• Available to explorers and CS-I dropouts

4
The Exploration Part

• Introductory discussion
• Define CS (solving problems via software
  development)
• Discuss kinds of jobs to be had
• Characterize programming (your favorite
  characterization?)
• Independent student exploration
• Students explore jobs, topics in CS
• Sharing/discussing explorations

5
Low Stress

• Pass/Fail rather than graded
• Grading scheme
• Scores missing0, fair1, ok2, good3,
  excellent4
• Must average "ok" to pass
• Showing up and participating will be important
• No exams (except possibly a pre-programming
  skills test that will be used to assess
  instruction, not students)

6
Two Planning Approaches

• Thinking in terms of programming tasks
• Thinking about the independent skills
• Obviously, some overlap
• Goal of understanding learning teaching implies
  focus on independent skills

7
Programming-like Tasks

• Directions (following giving)
• Abstraction (names/definitions using syntax
  charts and FSAs--interpreting, defining,
  debugging indirection)
• Sequencing instructions (including various
  control structures)
• Troubleshooting/debugging/diagnosing
• Problem representation
• Problem subtasking

8
Independent/Basic Skills

• Following directions (various contexts)
• Being planful (includes most tasks on previous
  slide)
• Problem representation (identify outcome(s),
  known data/resources, required/necessary
  tasks/interactions)
• Problem subtasking (problem subdivision with
  representation)
• Solution testing/debugging (requires observation,
  comparison with expectation, identifying problem,
  fixing)
• Solution implementation--concretizing
• Patterning is an underlying mechanism

9
Following Directions

• Subskills
• Careful listening/reading
• Interpreting
• Seeking clarification
• Practice with feedback/self-assessment
• Lots of contexts

10
Being PlanfulProblem Representation

• Varied contexts
• Individual and group exercises may be used
• Student success is measured by their personal
  formulation of the problem/scenario (outcome(s),
  known data/resources, required/necessary
  tasks/interactions)
• Self-assessment and discussion of formulations

11
Being PlanfulSubtasking/Actual Planning

• Build from prior tasks/contexts/problems
• Formalized/explicit planning versus real-time
  implementation under observation
• Require some formalization of plans (collection
  of subproblem representations)
• Sequencing introduced here (problem selection
  important)
• Discussion and self-assessment RE plans

12
Implementation/Concretizing

• Next step (but not part of "planful" skills)
• Will follow from (some) planned problem solutions
• Two possible approaches
• Repeatedly implement and test a solution
• Implement several solutions and, later, test them
  all

13
Being PlanfulTesting/Debugging

• Will build on student or instructor supplied
  solutions
• Involves stating expectations, observing
  results, comparing the two, identifying problems,
  fixing the problems, and comparing with
  expectations,
• Comments RE process?

14
(Oh, Yeah) Indirection

• I like this too much to leave it out
• Probably should be included anyway
• Arrays, indexes, pointers, abstracted comments
  (from real life and from other notations)

15
Testing these Skills

• Requires
• New contexts
• Multiple items per skill
• Careful selection of tasks to isolate skills
• Relatively easy checking?
• ?

16
Plans for the Course

• Schedule (1 week each)
• Intro CS exploration
• Following directions
• Problem representation
• Subtasking
• Implementing testing
• Indirection/programming
• Review/test/?

• Assignments
• Task homeworks
• Exploration report
• Suggestions?

17
Bibliography

• Course descriptions
• Theory
• Predicting programming skill
• www.cns.uni.edu/east/scholarship/necc/cs_made_eas
  y