Abstract
Cupi2 is a project that promotes an integral solution to problems in teaching/learning programming using a large and structured courseware, and a student-centered pedagogical model (Villalobos and Casallas 2006a; Villalobos et al. 2009a, b; Jiménez and Villalobos 2010). As a cornerstone of Cupi2, we use incremental projects intended to motivate students, and to develop high-level programming skills throughout their learning. A critical factor of these projects is that they are specially designed so that students are engaged in activities that complete a scaffold of a complete program. However, both the scaffolds and the activities needed to complete these incomplete programs must be arranged carefully by instructors in order to stress the adequate contents for students, and at the same time, to help those students acquire programming skills effectively. Jointly, scaffold versions need to comply with high quality standards, representing a high time consuming activity for instructors, and therefore, increased costs for institutions. In this paper, we describe the way we overcome these challenges using a software factory that supports the projects’ design in a scalable way.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Adams, K. (2005). The sources of innovation and creativity. Available at (accesed 10 October 2011): http://www.fpspi.org/Pdf/InnovCreativity.pdf.
Baeten, M., Kyndt, E., Struyven, K., & Dochy, F. (2010). Using student-centred learning environments to stimulate deep approaches to learning: Factors encouraging or discouraging their effectiveness. Educational Research Review, 5(3), 243–260. doi:10.1016/j.edurev.2010.06.001.
Bell, S. (2010). Project-based learning for the 21st century: Skills for the future. The Clearing House, 83, 39–43.
Biggers, M., Brauer, A., and Yilmaz, T. (2008) ‘Student perceptions of computer science: a retention study comparing graduating seniors with CS leavers’, Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, Portland, USA.
Blumenfeld, P. C., et al. (1991). Motivating project-based learning sustaining the doing, supporting the learning. Educational Psychologist, 26(3), 369–398. doi:10.1207/s15326985ep2603&4_8.
Boaler, J. (1999). Mathematics for the moment, or the millennium? Education Week, 17(29), 30–34.
Brickman, P., Gormally, C., Armstrong, N., and Hallar, B. (2009). Effects of Inquiry-based Learning on Students’ Science Literacy Skills and Confidence. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, vol. 3, no. 2.
Cannon, R., & Newble, D. (2000). A guide to improving teaching methods: A handbook for teachers in university and colleges. London: Kogan Page.
Curtis, D. (2002). The power of projects. Educational Leadership, 60(1), 50–63.
Gallagher, S. A., Stepien, W. J., & Rosenthal, H. (1992). The effects of problem-based learning on problem solving. Gifted Child Quarterly, 36, 195–200.
Hall, S. et al. (2002). Adoption of active-learning in a lecture-based engineering class. Proceedings of the 32nd ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Boston, USA.
Hu, C. (2006). It’s mathematical, after all—the nature of learning computer programming. Education and Information Technologies, 11, 83–92. doi:0.1007/s10639-005-5714-4.
Jiménez C., and Villalobos, J. (2010). Design and development of an undergraduate course in Internet applications based on an integral pedagogical approach. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU), Spain.
Köse, U. (2010). A web based system for project-based learning activities in ‘web design and programming’ course. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2, 1174–1184. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.03.168.
Laffey, J., Tupper, T., Musser, D., & Wedman, J. (1998). A computer-mediated support system for project-based learning. Education Technology Research and Development, 46(1), 73–86.
Lam, S., Wing-yi Cheng, R., & Choy, H. C. (2009). School support and teacher motivation to implement project-based learning. Learning and Instruction, 20, 487–497. doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2009.07.003.
Lea, S., Stevenson, D., & Troy, J. (2003). Higher education students’ attitudes to student-centred learning: beyond 'educational bulimia’? Studies in Higher Education, 28(3), 321–334. doi:10.1080/03075070309293.
Li, Q., Dyjur, P., Nicolson, N., and Moormann, L. (2009). Using Videoconferencing to Provide Mentorship in Inquiry-Based Urban and Rural Secondary Classrooms. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, vol. 35, no. 3.
McDougall, A., & Boyle, M. (2004). Student strategies for learning computer programming: implications for pedagogy in informatics. Education and Information Technologies, 9(2), 109–116.
Mohamed, A. R. (2008). Effects of Active Learning Variants on Student Performance and Learning Perceptions. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, vol. 2, no. 2.
Nagel, N. G. (1996). Learning through real-word solving: The power of integrating teaching. CA Corwin Press.
Oliver, R. (2007). Exploring an inquiry-based learning approach with first-year students in a large undergraduate class. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 44(1), 3–15.
Reinke, R. and Michalski, R. (1988). Incremental learning of concept descriptions: A method and experimental results. J. Hayes, D. Michie, and J. Richards (Eds.) Machine Intelligence 11, Oxford Clarendon Press.
Schneider, R. M., Krajcik, J., Marx, R. W., & Soloway, E. (2002). Performance of students in project-based science classrooms on a national measure of science achievement. Journal of research in science thinking, 39(5), 410–422.
Villalobos, J. (2008). Introducción a las Estructuras de Datos: Aprendizaje Activo basado en Casos. Prentice-Hall.
Villalobos, J., and Casallas, R. (2006). Teaching/learning a first object-oriented programming course outside the CS curriculum. 10th Workshop on Pedagogies and Tools for the Teaching and Learning of Object Oriented Concepts - ECOOP (European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming).
Villalobos, J., Casallas, R. (2006). Fundamentos de Programación: Aprendizaje Activo basado en Casos. Prentice-Hall.
Villalobos, J., Calderón, N., and Jiménez, C. (2009). Cupi2 community: Promoting a networking culture that supports the teaching of computer programming. Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU), Portugal.
Villalobos, J., Calderón, N., and Jiménez, C. (2009). Developing Programming Skills by Using Interactive Learning Objects. Proceedings of the 14th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE), France.
Wilfred, L., & Allan, Y. (2011). The impact of the medium of instruction: the case of teaching and learning of computer programming. Education and Information Technologies, 16, 183–201. doi:10.1007/s10639-009-9118-8.
Woodley, M., and Kamin, S. (2007). Programming Studio: A course for improving programming skills in undergraduates. Proceedings of the 38th technical symposium on computer science education, Kentucky, USA.
Acknowledgments
We greatly acknowledge the support from European Union to our work, through the project entitled IGUAL – Innovation for Equality in Latin American Universities (code DCI-ALA/19.09.01/10/21526/245-315/ALFAHI (2010)123) of the ALFA III program). Although this article has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union, the contents of this article are the sole responsibility of the authors and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Vega, C., Jiménez, C. & Villalobos, J. A scalable and incremental project-based learning approach for CS1/CS2 courses. Educ Inf Technol 18, 309–329 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-012-9242-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-012-9242-8