International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies- CompSysTech’07 A.pdf

International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies - CompSysTech’07 A tool to help students to develop programming skills Cristiana Areias, António Mendes Abstract: Computer programming learning is difficult and requires hard work from students. They need to do many exercises and create many programs to improve their programming competences. In this paper we present ProGuide, a dialogue based tool to support weaker students to create basic programs. In ProGuide students are motivated and guided through a dialogue, where the tool puts questions to help students reach the problem solution. Keywords: algorithmic learning, problem-solving techniques, educational technology, programming teaching and learning INTRODUCTION Programming learning is recognized as a complex activity by a large number of students. To program, novice student must acquire some basic knowledge as variables and data type’s concepts, I/O, control structures, and so on. Although this knowledge is transmitted by teachers, many novice students can’t use them when asked to solve a programming exercise. In literature [1,2] we can find several reasons that contribute to learning difficulties, like the programming language syntax, student motivation level, mathematic and science background, and so on, but as Spohrer and Soloway [3] we believe that the real problem is “putting all pieces together” composing and coordinating components of a program. Like Boada et al. [4] we believe that students learn better if they have an active behavior, opposed to the passive behavior we can find frequently in traditional classrooms. In programming this means that the most important activity for students is creating their own programs. In other words, programming is the best way to learn how to program. However, this approach demands much effort and persistence and many students look for easier ways, like asking the solution to some colleague. During the y