Improving the Odds of Success in Computer Science 1Dr. Wayne SummersTSYS School of Computer Science16 November 2012

AGENDATHE ProblemOUR SolutionDetailsQ&A

THE Problem!?!between 30% and 60% of every university computer science department's intake fail the first programming course.

Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats, http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/separating-programming-sheep-from-non-programming-goats.html, created - July 14, 2006, last viewed October 10, 2012

THE Problem!?!

What Language to Teach?The problem in a current educational setting is deciding which languages (of the thousands out there) to teach students. Majoring on .Net and Java will teach them useful work skills, but some time spent on Ruby, Python or other languages might be more useful in teaching them that there is more than one way to solve a problem.

Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming GoatsJuly 14, 2006 [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/separating-programming-sheep-from-non-programming-goats.html]

Sheet1

TIOBE Programming Community Index for November 2012

PositionPositionProgramming Language

Nov-12Nov-11

12C

21Java

36Objective-C

43C++

55PHP

64C#

77(Visual) Basic

88Python

910Perl

1011Ruby

119JavaScript

1216Delphi/Object Pascal

1313Lisp

1414Pascal

1523Visual Basic .NET

1619Ada

1712PL/SQL

1818Lua

1915MATLAB

2024Assembly

Sheet2

Sheet3

HISTORY There is an interesting difference between teaching C, C++, Java and the older mainframe procedural languages like Fortran, COBOL, and Algol. How could McCracken teach Algol in 100 pages, or Fortran in some 140, or COBOL, which had a lot of detail, in less than 200, and yet the Sun Java Tutorial series is three 950 page volumes and continually refers to the online Sun JavaDoc files?

[New Methods for Teaching Programming Languages to both Engineering and Computer Science Students by Dr. Peter C. Patton (http://www.micsymposium.org/mics_2004/Patton.pdf)]

CHOICESList of Hello World Programs in 200 Programming Languages 99 Bottles of Beer in over 1500 languages

Sum two numbers (JAVA)import java.util.Scanner;

public class Sum2Numbers{ public static void main (String[] args) { Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in); int a, b, sum; System.out.print("Enter a number: "); a = scan.nextInt(); System.out.print("Enter a 2nd number: "); b = scan.nextInt(); sum = a + b; System.out.println("The sum is " + sum ); }}

PROBLEMS WITH JAVA AS A FIRST LANGUAGEScale and InstabilityLinguistics ComplexityAPIs IssuesCore Syntax and Semantics

[Zanev & Radenski, Two-Language, Two-Paradigm Introductory Computing Curriculum Model and Its Implementation, Serdica Journal of Computing, 2011]

(Seymour Papert, in "Mindstorms")A deep understanding of programming, in particular the notions of successive decomposition as a mode of analysis and debugging of trial solutions, results in significant educational benefits in many domains of discourse, including those unrelated to computers and information technology per se.

OPTIONS (what weve tried)C++: pre - 2003Java (2004)Java with 3-hour closed lab (2006)Introduction to Computing and Programming in Java: A Multimedia Approach (2007-2008)Java with Alice and Media Computation (2009)Freshmen Learning Communities (Fall 2011)=====================================Fundamentals of Computer Programming and Data Structures

Sum two numbers (Python)a = int(input("Enter a number: "))b = int(input("Enter a 2nd number: "))sum = a + bprint("The sum is ", sum)

OR

a = input("Enter a number: ")b = input("Enter a 2nd number: ")sum = int(a) + int(b)print("The sum is ", sum)

Two Language Approach (Python => Java)5 weeks PythonFunctionsI/O LoopsDecisionsDefining Functions, ListsMore Loops, Files1 week transition9 weeks Java

Computer Science 1 productive grades

My Grades (% A-B-C)

Comparison with Dept.

Comparison of Cohorts

Comparison with Java-only class

ResourcesInsights on teaching computer programming | Lambda the Ultimate http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/view/1195 Computer Science for Non-Majors Takes Many Forms - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/business/computer-science-for-non-majors-takes-many-forms.html A Very Quick Comparison of Popular Languages for Teaching ... http://www.ariel.com.au/a/teaching-programming.html List of educational programming languages - Wikipedia, the free ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_educational_programming_languages Introduction to Computer Programming - What Is It? http://www.bfoit.org/Intro_to_Programming/Programming.html Philip Guo - Why Python is a great language for teaching beginners ... http://www.pgbovine.net/python-teaching.htm Teaching Programming https://engineering.purdue.edu/kak/TeachingProgramming.pdf Teaching Computer Programming to High School students: An ... http://www.austintek.com/python_class/python_class.sect_1.html The challenges of teaching computer programming http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=214913 INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY IN THE TEACHING OF COMPUTER ... http://www.tojet.net/articles/v9i2/9214.pdf Introduction to Computer Programming - What Is It http://www.bfoit.org/itp/Programming.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/separating-programming-sheep-from-non-programming-goats.html Testing Programming Aptitude by Saeed Dehnadi http://www.eis.mdx.ac.uk/research/PhDArea/saeed/S_Dehnadi_ppij-2006__2.pdf (paper)Why Johnny can't program - http://www.bricklin.com/wontprogram.htmNew Methods for Teaching Programming Languages to both Engineering and Computer Science Students by Dr. Peter C. Patton (http://www.micsymposium.org/mics_2004/Patton.pdf)

**QUESTIONS?Wayne SummersTSYS School of Computer Science

(706) 507-8170

http://cs.ColumbusState.eduwsummers@ColumbusState.edu