Learn to Code, an Interactive Application to Promote Mobile Student-Centred Learning
This paper discusses the first two phases in the development of a Learn to Code online web-based application, presents our initial findings and outlines the next stage of the research. First year Computer Science students start university with a wide rang
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1 Introduction Our large cohort of undergraduate computer science students start University with a diverse range of qualifications, competencies and prior programming experience and this presents challenges for the teaching of programming. There is criticism that computer programming teaching is too ‘abstract’ for many novice learners [1]. Students find learning to program difficult, and it is associated with high dropout rates [2]. This paper discusses the design and development of a Learn to Code (hereafter L2C) application and outlines how it aims to support the teaching and learning of programming.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 M. E. Auer and T. Tsiatsos (Eds.): IMCL 2019, AISC 1192, pp. 232–241, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49932-7_23
Learn to Code, an Interactive Application to Promote
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2 L2C Design Principles and Justification Our initial proposal was to develop a platform or framework that would enable the development of programming teaching material for first year students with no programming background. To ensure the tool would work on as many platforms as possible (desktop and mobile devices) a web solution with progressive enhancements was decided as the best solution. This would ensure the tool would be usable beyond the release of new OS versions. The L2C application aids students learning preferences in relation to the visual, auditory and kinaesthetic (VAK) classification of learning styles defined by Sarasin [3]. In the VAK classification the visual learners engage best when they see the learning resources, while auditory learners engage best when hearing the material, and kinaesthetic learners prefer to engage by doing [4]. To accommodate these learning styles, the platform would consists of: – – – –
a graphical representation of previously prepared code examples; screencasts and interactive videos, including tests and quizzes; text-based and interactive lessons; and self-marking tutorials.
Student-centred teaching is designed to encourage students to engage in learning by relating to how students learn through activity and engagement [5]. The L2C application resources are accessible in any order, enabling students to choose what they will learn, how they learn, and how they assess their learning.
3 Methodology To evaluate the proposed application, we conducted an initial survey with 20 student respondents drawn from the three years of undergraduate study. The survey was used to gather feedback on the features of the application and to help prioritise our requirements. The students were sent a questionnaire of 22 questions with single choice, multiple choice, and free text answers, to gather data of how useful they would find various potential features of the tool, which features were essential to them, and which were good to have. We also asked them about their year of study, and their experience and confidence in programming. The data was collected in a spreadsheet as part of the Google form answers to analyse the results. The findings of this initia
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