Week 11 - Understanding Programming Difficulties
Prior to Small Group
The work this week is being done in a slightly different order. In most sections I have you READ first and then WRITE second. In this section I want to reverse those. I want you to think about the problem before the "experts" tell you what they think The end goal of this topic is for each participant to possess an annotated list of common programming errors. The annotations should include names and explanations that provide understanding and alternatives for "fixing" them. I firmly believe that by the process of developing this list (in addition to the actual finished product) will enhance both your understanding of programming and your ability to respond to student difficulties.Write
Your first task is to individually identify difficulties that a novice programmer might encounter. You may remember some that you have encountered. You can, of course, examine your email conversations with instructors or review the videos from Fundamentals of Programming to identify additional ones. You may use whatever format seems most useful to you, but I recommend including name, error message (for syntax errors) or difficulty (for logic errors), cause(s) of the problem, and fix(es) for the problem. Note: syntax errors will have error messages and logic errors will not.
Sample items are included below.
- Uninitialized variable
- Cause(s)
- A variable on the right-hand-side of an assignment statement was not initialized
- total in this example
- A variable on the right-hand-side of an assignment statement was not initialized
- Fix(es)
- Be sure to initialize all accumulator variables, e.g.,
- total = 0
- Be sure to initialize all accumulator variables, e.g.,
- Misplaced initialization
- The accumulator variable doesn't get all the values
- Cause(s)
- The initialize statement is placed inside the loop that accumulates the values., e.g.
- The initialize statement is placed inside the loop that accumulates the values., e.g.
- Fix(es)
- Move the initialization outside (before) the loop so it only occurs once, e.g.,
- Move the initialization outside (before) the loop so it only occurs once, e.g.,
Research Readings
I asked you to think through your experiences first because I wanted you to put your own personal experiences on this material. Once you have a good starting list that comes from your own experiences, I want you to do some reading on what the "research literature" has identified as some of the common difficulties that new programmers have when learning how to program.
The list below is not a full assigned reading list. That is, I do not expect you to read every last detail in each of these papers. Instead, I would ask you to "browse" these three resources to start with so you understand what they are about. Don't worry about the details. Get the big picture first:
- (PDF) "A Study of the Difficulties of Novice Programmers"
- (PDF) "Novice programmer’s misconception of programming reflected on problem-solving plans"
- (PDF) Beginner Programmers' Mistakes
- Note, if you find an additional article you think fits this discussion PLEASE feel free to read it and share the link with me!
Once you have done this I would ask you to REVISIT each one focusing in more detail on the sections pointed out below:
- A Study of the Difficulties - focus on section 4 and the table
- Novice Programmer's misconceptions - Section 2.2 and all of section 4
- Beginner Programmers' Mistakes (Make sure you understand the main idea of all of the author's 25 points)
At the Small Group
At the meetup this week you should
- Discuss the readings [~30 minutes]
- Discuss your individual lists and feel free to extend your based on things your groupmate added to the discussion[~30 minutes]
After Small Group
- As appropriate you may rewrite your difficulty list for the week prior to submitting.
- Submit the final version of your difficulty list deliverable on Blackboard (0/1)
- Complete the Competency Demo for this week. (0-4)
- Do NOT attempt this until after you have done all other activities for the week.
- Submit the final version of your CD on Blackboard
Weekly Code
- This week's code/program activity is a "select" activity and is thus worth 1 point towards your code grade.