Charles Alford IV
Pronouns: He/Him/His
UROP Fellowship: Intel SRC
Research Mentor(s): Barbara Ericson, PhD
Research Mentor Institution/Department: School of Information
Presentation Date: Wednesday, August 4th
Session: Session 1 (3pm-3:50pm EDT)
Breakout Room: Room 1
Presenter: 6
Abstract
Many students, especially those without any prior programming experience, find introductory programming courses difficult and time consuming. However, students need lots of practice to learn programming. Typically they practice by writing code from scratch. While this is an authentic task, it can overwhelm beginners. We have been creating and testing interactive ebooks with a variety of practice types including Parsons problems. A Parsons problem provides all the correct code to solve a problem, but the code is broken into code blocks and mixed-up. The learner must place the blocks in the correct order. Our research has shown that most students find solving Parsons problems useful for learning, but some students would rather write code from scratch. We have added the ability to switch to an equivalent write code problem when asked to solve a Parsons problem. We are modifying all the Parsons problems in an interactive ebook for C++ to include the equivalent write code problem. We plan to test this new type of problem in Engineering 101 in fall 2021.
Authors: Charles Alford, Barbara Ericson
Research Method: Computer Programming
