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Taxing our Best Students

Taxing our Best Students
Taxing our Best Students
A significant challenge that faces any teacher of introductory programming is the diversity of the class. At one extreme there will be students who have never programmed before, while at the other there will be students who have many years experience of programming. Handling this diversity is difficult. The temptation for the instructor is often to focus on the novice group and to assume that the others will get by with minimal supervision. This is understandable, but it can be risky. There is a very real risk that the neglected group of experienced programmers become bored and disengage from the course. At the worst, they can lose motivation and fail or drop out altogether. This paper describes and presents the outcomes of a project aimed at challenging the more experienced programmers in four introductory programming classes at four different UK institutions. The project took the form of a competition in which students were asked to devise and solve a series of programming challenges.
programming competition diversity retention motivation
1473-7507
120-127
Carter, Janet
64230cac-3e26-4fe1-879a-9de7761770b9
Efford, Nick
be50ce8d-6153-4d3b-b6fe-f5afaaa37bcd
Jamieson, Stephan
d77345fa-48ca-439d-88fc-74af28a37e7e
Jenkins, Tony
cb7b3eb9-f00e-4a49-8715-6eb1b57f4bf6
White, Su
5f9a277b-df62-4079-ae97-b9c35264c146
Carter, Janet
64230cac-3e26-4fe1-879a-9de7761770b9
Efford, Nick
be50ce8d-6153-4d3b-b6fe-f5afaaa37bcd
Jamieson, Stephan
d77345fa-48ca-439d-88fc-74af28a37e7e
Jenkins, Tony
cb7b3eb9-f00e-4a49-8715-6eb1b57f4bf6
White, Su
5f9a277b-df62-4079-ae97-b9c35264c146

Carter, Janet, Efford, Nick, Jamieson, Stephan, Jenkins, Tony and White, Su (2008) Taxing our Best Students. ITALICS, 7 (1), 120-127. (In Press)

Record type: Article

Abstract

A significant challenge that faces any teacher of introductory programming is the diversity of the class. At one extreme there will be students who have never programmed before, while at the other there will be students who have many years experience of programming. Handling this diversity is difficult. The temptation for the instructor is often to focus on the novice group and to assume that the others will get by with minimal supervision. This is understandable, but it can be risky. There is a very real risk that the neglected group of experienced programmers become bored and disengage from the course. At the worst, they can lose motivation and fail or drop out altogether. This paper describes and presents the outcomes of a project aimed at challenging the more experienced programmers in four introductory programming classes at four different UK institutions. The project took the form of a competition in which students were asked to devise and solve a series of programming challenges.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 28 February 2008
Keywords: programming competition diversity retention motivation
Organisations: Electronics & Computer Science

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 265379
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/265379
ISSN: 1473-7507
PURE UUID: 10d82c01-4a8b-4216-a76f-9fdd50aa9d7c
ORCID for Su White: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9588-5275

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 01 Apr 2008 14:33
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:03

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Contributors

Author: Janet Carter
Author: Nick Efford
Author: Stephan Jamieson
Author: Tony Jenkins
Author: Su White ORCID iD

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