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Why Complicate Things? Introducing Programming in High School Using Python

Grandell, L., Peltomaki, M., Back, R.-J. and Salakoski, T.

    Deciding what to teach novices about programming and what programming language to use is a common topic for debate. Should an industry relevant programming language be taught, or should a language designed for teaching novices be used? Typically, these questions are raised at university level, but in this paper we address them from a high school perspective. We present a case study with a twofold goal: (1) examining how programming can be introduced at high school level, and (2) evaluating how suitable the programming language Python is to support both teachers and learners in this process. During the school year 2004/2005, an introductory programming course was given to four student groups in two different high schools. The students enjoyed programming and learnt to think in terms of re-use and interfaces. In addition, we found that many features of Python facilitated both teaching and learning (for instance, a simple and flexible syntax, immediate feedback, easy to- use modules and strict requirements on proper indentation). Our findings support results from previous studies in that students have difficulties in dealing with abstract concepts - even though the syntax for implementing these is simple. In addition, compared to university students, high school students are young and have necessarily not yet developed the writing skills required for producing proper documentation. The course was designed to be well suited for high school students in general, but still all participants were boys. Since high schools should provide allround learning to all students, we, as do all computer science teachers, face the challenge of making programming more appealing to girls.
Cite as: Grandell, L., Peltomaki, M., Back, R.-J. and Salakoski, T. (2006). Why Complicate Things? Introducing Programming in High School Using Python. In Proc. Eighth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2006), Hobart, Australia. CRPIT, 52. Tolhurst, D. and Mann, S., Eds. ACS. 71-80.
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