From Playing to Understanding: The Transformative Potential of Discourse versus Syntax in Learning to Program
Michael Thomas Flanagan1 and Jan Smith2
Presented at the Threshold Concepts within the Disciplines Symposium
Glasgow, UK
30 August—1 September 2006
Abstract
First year electronic engineering students are no exception to their
contemporaries in their addiction to computer games. However, their
mastery of these lucrative products of object-oriented programming
(OOP) does not readily translate into an understanding of OOP when
presented as a formal first year course. One of the fascinations of
teaching programming is that, whilst many students learn to program
without apparent difficulty, a significant proportion finds the
activity extremely troublesome. This observation may be compounded for
students of electronic engineering, where threshold concepts (Meyer and
Land, 2003; 2005) may be ‘nested’ in the curriculum. Such potential
thresholds may lie in the concepts of OOP, in the exemplifiers dictated
by electronic engineering syllabi or in the linguistics of a computer
language itself. Implications for teaching and curriculum redesign vary
significantly across this spectrum. In this context, students’ problems
appear to arise from two sources: firstly, the form of the programming
language which, to paraphrase Andersen (1990), parasitises English but
cannot be read as English, an overwhelming threshold conception, or
secondly, more localised threshold concepts inherent in OOP itself,
such as abstract classes and interfaces. Consequently we have adopted a
three-fold schema to discuss these potentially troublesome concept:
This talk will discuss these three streams, in terms of the Meyer and
Land threshold concept, drawing on the experience of teaching first and
second year Java and C language programming courses and on a second
year course on object-oriented programming for systems and control
engineering. The locally challenged and conceptually challenged streams
will be discussed primarily in terms of a compounding of local examples
of troublesome concepts in programming with those in the electronics
and applied physics underpinning the programming exercises. A
linguistic approach, borrowing concepts such as markedness, will be
applied to the analysis of the operationally challenged stream.
References for the abstract
- Andersen, P B (1990) A Theory of Computer Semiotics, Semiotic
Approaches to Construction and Assessment of Computer Systems,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
- Meyer, J.H.F. and Land, R., (2003), Threshold concepts and
troublesome knowledge: linkages to ways of thinking and practising
within the disciplines, in Rust, C., (ed), Proceedings of the 2002 10th
International Symposium on Improving Student Learning Theory and
Practice - 10 years on, Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning
Development, 412-424.
See also http://www.ed.ac.uk/etl/docs/ETLreport4.pdf
- Meyer, J.H.F. and Land, R., (2005), Threshold concepts and
troublesome knowledge (2): epistemological considerations and a
conceptual framework for teaching and learning, Higher Education, 49,
(3), 373-388.
Authors
- Michael Thomas Flanagan, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Roberts Building, University College London (UCL),
Torrington Place, London WC1E 7JE (m.flanagan@ee.ucl.ac.uk)
- Jan Smith, Centre for Academic Practice and Learning Enhancement, University of Strathclyde,
Graham Hills Building, 50 George Street, Glasgow G1 1QE (jan.smith@strath.ac.uk)