Abstract:

Programming is a highly creative process. A good programmer must possess a wide range of skills that are combined and used to solve a problem while coding. The program is not just an ordinary syntactic notation of the solution’s procedure, but it also reflects the skilful and optimal use of the system of elements of the programming environment in which the programmer operates. In addition to control structures (in the form of commands), these elements also include standard and non-standard data types and data structures of the basic programming language. The problem that the programmer solves is represented by the data that we store in the selected data structures and their processing (problem solving) is marked by how the communication is solved, e.g. access to elements. Thus, programming skills include the transformation of the solution of the problem into a program with optimal use of the programming environment. In addition to theoretical knowledge of programming and the programming paradigm used, the programmer must also have sufficient programming experience and skills – i.e. must have programmer thinking.

The article reports on the methods and forms of teaching programming used by the authors during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. They also report on how they communicated and held discussions with learners online, how they changed and adapted their full-time teaching to distance learning, how they managed to maintain and adopt best practices from classical programming teaching, how teaching aids were changed to suitable distance learning. They also analyze the suitability of some methods for distance learning such as problem-based and project-based programming teaching; programming according to instructions; use of classic and interactive electronic textbooks; use of programming courses via the Internet; computer game programming, etc.

Keywords:

Programming, programming learning, distance learning, algorithmic thinking, programming thinking.