E. Soloway
Abstract
Teaching effective problem-solving skills in the context of teaching programming necessitates a revised curriculum for introductory computer programming courses.
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Index Terms
- Learning to program = learning to construct mechanisms and explanations
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Reviews
Grady Gaston Early
Soloway states clearly and explicitly what many of us have known for years: introductory programming courses should concentrate less on computer programming and more on algorithm development. Further, the beginning course should be used to communicate to students many of the common programming idioms or “stereotypical solutions” that are used repeatedly to solve problems. The input-process-output idiom, various sorting and searching idioms, etc., should be demonstrated to students. According to Soloway, students should also be taught various plans for constructing algorithms by combining idioms in various ways. Abutment allows two idioms to be catenated for sequential execution. Nesting allows one idiom to surround another. Merging allows two idioms to proceed simultaneously. Tailoring allows one to modify an “almost works” solution so that it fits a new situation. It seems to me that it may be true that the Moore, or Texas, method of mathematics instruction is valuable for some students. A student may develop a deeper understanding of a topic if that student “discovers” the topic for himself by starting with first principles so as to reinvent the discipline. But many students do not have the time for such a plan. Nor do most CS departments have the faculty to support a leisurely, Socratic method. In such cases, I believe it is more cost-effective to teach the idioms as we teach multiplication facts: present the “why,” of course, but insist on memorization as well. Finally, programmers use many tools to construct problem solutions. To this reviewer, it makes no more sense to turn novice programmers loose in a shop full of tools, without rigorous instruction in the use of those tools, than to turn a novice machinist loose in a machine shop with a similar lack of instruction. We now have many programming idioms that have been developed over hundreds of years of collective effort. I believe we must pass on these idioms to our successors in a much shorter period of time.
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