Image Capture for Concrete Programming: building schemata for problem solving

Abstract

Problem solving in IT consists of expressing an algorithm for abstract models of computation. This has proven to be hard, but it can be taught, specially when students are exposed to concrete and visual illustrations of artefact behaviour. IT graduates require problem-solving skills, but it is difficult to teach such problem-solving skills in the context of huge bodies of technological concepts, large programming languages and the need for system-focused courses required for accreditation. We propose to design and develop concrete programming activities that will enable to articulate problem solving across many subjects. The goal is also to place concepts in the context of concrete problems, and to progress from concrete settings (where programming is achieved by building structures) to visual settings (where programming is achieved by re-arranging icons in a GUI), and later to textual programming in imperative APIs like MaSH. We capture the participants constructions with a camera and this is a program that produces behavior. The approach delivers the potential to take students to investigate research questions.