Abstract:

The author just taught CSC 101 Introduction to Computers which covers concepts of computer hardware and software and programming. About half of the students enrolled were computer science (CS) majors while the other half were non-CS majors. The challenging part for this course was how to effectively teach programming to the non-CS majors because they did not have the foundation and expectation to learn computer programming at all. This paper discusses the programming-teaching in the course.

Python was chosen as the programming language because it is quite relaxed in data types and that would reduce the frustration and struggling caused by data typing. The teaching started with the introduction to top general concepts of programming. This part is vital so that students know what general rules to follow in order to complete a program. For example, students must know that a program consists of three parts: input, process, and output; variables must be declared so memory space is allocated to store data; and programs are centered around handling of data/variables.

With the fundamental concepts clarified, it was easier for students to understand commands and use them to develop proper program flows. The author also adopted experiential learning by having students do hands-on programming in class in the early stage. The author would provide immediate assistance during the sessions. It proved that students grasped how to program quickly when corrections were made in real-time.

Once students were used to writing simple working programs, they felt confident to write more complicated programs. No more hands-on programming sessions were required at that stage. Lectures can be used to teach other more complicated commands. Lots of examples were utilized to demonstrate the proper use of each command.

At the end of the semester, the overall approach proved to be effective in teaching non-CS majors how to program. Without doubt, the approach also works for teaching computer science majors computer programming.

Keywords:

Computer programming, introductory course, non-computer science major.