Problem-solving

Two members of the Computing Division of the University of Northampton have contributed a chapter to the book   Software Industry-Oriented Education Practices and Curriculum Development: Experiences and Lessons   edited by  Drs. Matthew Hussey, Xiaofei Xu and Bing Wu.   ISBN:  978-1609607975   IGI Global  to be published later this year. Problems First Gary Hill and Scott Turner ABSTRACT This chapter considers the need to focus initial programming education on  problem-solving , in advance 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.  P roblem solving is not trivial (Beaumont & Fox, 2003) and is an important skill, central to computing and engineering. An approach wil...

Two members of the computing division  presented a paper " Innovative use of Robots and Graphical Programming in Software Education " at   6th China Europe International Symposium on Software Industry Oriented Education (CEISIE2010) Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an China . Abstract: Problem solving is an important skill for a computer scientist. Mindstorm based robots have been used previously, for teaching programming to computing and engineering students here we look at problem solving. These approaches focus upon the development of problem solving skills and not on learning a new programming language from the outset. Therefore, initially, any programming is kept simple with the minimum of commands, with „objects‟ unknowingly used, as these are later introduced/learnt during the programming stage of the computing module. This work suggests that using LEGO robots within the teaching of problem solving and the resulting java GUI emulation has some benefits f...