Skip to main content

Problems First, Second and Third DOI: 10.4018/ijqaete.2014070104

A paper has recently been published in International Journal of Quality Assurance in Engineering and Technology Education on problem-solving and programming by two members of the Department of Computing and Immersive Technologies, University of Northampton.



Problems First, Second and Third. 
Gary Hill and Scott Turner
DOI:  10.4018/ijqaete.2014070104

Abstract
This paper considers the need to focus initial programming education on problem-solving, prior to the teaching of programming syntax and software design methodology. The main vehicle for this approach is simple Lego based robots programmed in Java, followed by the programming of a graphical representation/simulation to develop programming skills. Problem solving is not trivial (Beaumont & Fox, 2003) and is an important skill, central to computing and engineering. The paper extends the authors earlier research on problems first and problem solving (Hill & Turner, 2011) to further emphasise the importance of problem-solving, problem based learning and the benefits of both physical and visual solutions. An approach will be considered, illustrated with a series of problem-solving tasks that increase in complexity at each stage and give the students practice in attempting problem-solving approaches, as well as assisting them to learn from their mistakes. Some of the problems include ambiguities or are purposely ill-defined, to enable the student to resolve these as part of the process. The benefits to students will be discussed including students' statements that this approach, using robots, provides a method to visually and physically see the outcome of a problem. In addition, students report that the method improves their satisfaction with the course. The importance of linking the problem-solving robot activity and the programming assignment, whilst maintaining the visual nature of the problem, will be discussed, together with the comparison of this work with similar work reported by other authors relating to teaching programming using robots (Williams, 2003). In addition, limitations will be discussed relating to the access to the physical robots and the alternative attempts to simulate the robots using three options of, Microsoft Robotics Studio (MSRS), Lego Mindstorms and Greenfoot simulators.





To read a preview of the paper go to: http://www.igi-global.com/viewtitlesample.aspx?id=117560&ptid=91662&t=Problems%20First,%20Second%20and%20Third

All opinions in this blog are the Author's and should not in any way be seen as reflecting the views of any organisation the Author has any association with.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Robot Software

In the previous blog posts for this 'series' "It is a good time...."  Post 1  looked at the hardware unpinning some of this positive rise in robots; Post 2  looked at social robots; Post 3  looked at a collection of small robots; Post 4 looked at further examples of small robots Robots, such as the forthcoming Buddy and JIBO, will be based some established open sourceand other technologies. Jibo will be based around various technologies including Electron and JavaScript (for more details see:  http://blog.jibo.com/2015/07/29/jibo-making-development-readily-accessible-to-all-developers/ ). Buddy is expected to be developed around tools for Unity3d, Arduino and OpenCV, and support Python, C++, C#, Java and JavaScript (for more details see http://www.roboticstrends.com/article/customize_your_buddy_companion_robot_with_this_software_development_kit ).  This post contin ues with some of the software being used with the smaller robots.  A number ...
1 comment
Read more

Speech Recognition in Scratch 3 - turning Hello into Bonjour!

The Raspberry Pi Foundation recently released a programming activity Alien Language , with support Dale from Machine Learning for Kids , that is a brilliant use of Scratch 3 - Speech Recognition to control a sprite in an alien language. Do the activity, and it is very much worth doing, and it will make sense! I  would also recommend going to the  machinelearningforkids.co.uk   site anyway it is full of exciting things to do (for example loads of activities  https://machinelearningforkids.co.uk/#!/worksheets  ) . Scratch 3 has lots of extensions that are accessible through the Extension button in the Scratch 3 editor (see below) which add new fun new blocks to play with. The critical thing for this post is  Machine Learning for Kids  have created a Scratch 3 template with their own extensions for Scratch 3 within it  https://machinelearningforkids.co.uk/scratch3/ . One of which is a Speech to Text extension (see below). You must use this one ...
5 comments
Read more

Escape the Maze with a VR robot - Vex VR

You don't need to buy a robot to get programming a robot, now there are a range of free and relatively simple to start with robot simulators to play with. Three examples are listed below: - Make code for Lego EV3  https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2020/05/programming-robots-virtually-3-lego-ev3.html   - i Robot simulator  https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2020/04/programming-robots-virtually-2-irobot.html - Vex robotics Vexcode VR   https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2020/04/programming-robots-virtually-1-vexcode.html   It is the last one of these ( https://www.vexrobotics.com/vexcode-vr ) that is the focus of this post and return to hit, after an earlier discussion in  https://robotsandphysicalcomputing.blogspot.com/2020/04/programming-robots-virtually-1-vexcode.html   .  Two of the nice things about the package, apart from being free, are it uses a Scratch-like programming language and it provides a ...
2 comments
Read more