Manipulatives for Teaching Introductory Programming to Struggling Students: A Case of Nested-decisions

Tlou Ramabu, Ian Sanders, Marthie Schoeman

2021

Abstract

Programming is one of the major subjects within the field of computing. In the higher education sector, some introductory programming students succeed while others find it difficult to progress or learn the material. Methods of teaching to program do not accommodate struggling students. Among introductory programming issues, the nested-decision statement is one of the misconceived concepts. In the literature, there is evidence that some programming educators make use of physical manipulatives to teach introductory programming. However, there is no framework or validation methods used to identify and use the manipulatives. In this study, we designed a manipulative called Nested-decider to assist struggling introductory programming students to develop an appropriate conceptual knowledge about nested-decisions. The details of the design and its functionalities are presented in this paper. We believe that teaching and learning nested-decisions with the proposed Nested-decider manipulative could be a useful pedagogical intervention towards enhancing struggling students’ comprehension. This is ongoing research where we identify and test various manipulatives for struggling introductory programming students. The results will also help us to develop a manipulatives – oriented pedagogical framework, which can be used to inform identification and use of manipulatives.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Ramabu T., Sanders I. and Schoeman M. (2021). Manipulatives for Teaching Introductory Programming to Struggling Students: A Case of Nested-decisions. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU, ISBN 978-989-758-502-9, pages 505-510. DOI: 10.5220/0010477505050510

in Bibtex Style

@conference{csedu21,
author={Tlou Ramabu and Ian Sanders and Marthie Schoeman},
title={Manipulatives for Teaching Introductory Programming to Struggling Students: A Case of Nested-decisions},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU,},
year={2021},
pages={505-510},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0010477505050510},
isbn={978-989-758-502-9},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU,
TI - Manipulatives for Teaching Introductory Programming to Struggling Students: A Case of Nested-decisions
SN - 978-989-758-502-9
AU - Ramabu T.
AU - Sanders I.
AU - Schoeman M.
PY - 2021
SP - 505
EP - 510
DO - 10.5220/0010477505050510