Whereas hackathons are widespread within and outside academia and have been argued to be a valid pedagogical method for teaching interdisciplinarity, no detailed frameworks or methods are available for conceptualizing and organizing educational hackathons, i.e., hackathons dedicated to best achieving pedagogic objectives. This paper is dedicated…

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the potential of use for computer science course designs (CSCD) created by game-based learning method. Qualitative case study was used as the research design. CSCDs created for Minecraft Education Edition (MinecraftEdu) were examined in the context of various criteria by document analysis method, and…

In this case study, we present our findings regarding a massive open online Scratch programming course. The course, which followed a project-based learning approach, was delivered from July 4 to 30, 2022 to 186 students in Brazil. The students were challenged to develop individual coding projects. Our research goal was to investigate teaching and…

A typical first computer science course (CS1) introduces the student to coding conventions, variables, methods, control structures, conditionals, and the semantics of classes and objects. Advanced concepts of inheritance, polymorphism, abstract classes, interfaces, and their use in the design process, are covered in a second-level course (CS2).…

Computers and smart devices have become ubiquitous staples of our lives. Computers and computer-controlled devices are used in all industries from medicine to engineering, and textile production. One field where computers have inevitably spread into is education, and one pre-requisite of controlling computers, or increasing the level and…

The BBC Micro:bit is a great device to encourage students to get involved in Computer Science and to create their own digital projects. However, the design of the single-board computer (including the built-in sensors) makes it possible to use it in Physics lessons or in Physics related activities, too. Those students who are keen to take up…

Computing education in schools faces several problems, such as a lack of computing teachers and time in an already overloaded curriculum. A solution can be a multidisciplinary approach, integrating the teaching of computing within other subjects, creating the need to motivate teachers from other disciplines to teach computing in middle school.…

Pedagogy has emphasized that physical representations and tangible interactive objects benefit learning especially for young students. There are many tangible hardware platforms for introducing computer programming to children, but there is limited comparative evaluation of them in the context of a formal classroom. In this work, we explore the…

Practical abilities are important for students from majors including Computer Science and Engineering, and Electrical Engineering. Along with the popularity of ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM/ICPC) and other programming contests, online judge (OJ) websites achieve rapid development, thus providing a new kind of programming…

This article brings together, summarizes, and comments on several threads of research that have contributed to our understanding of the challenges that novice programmers face when learning about the runtime dynamics of programs and the role of the computer in program execution. More specifically, the review covers the literature on programming…

Programming is recognised as one of seven grand challenges in computing education and attracts much attention in computing education research. Most research in the area concerns teaching methods, educational technology and student understanding/misconceptions. Typically, evaluation of learning outcome takes place during or immediately following…

The scope of this article is to understand to what extent Computer Science teachers can find support for their Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) in teaching material. We report the results of a study in which PCK is used as framework to develop a research instrument to examine three high school computer science textbooks, with special focus on…

Computer Science (CS) is a relatively new disciple and how best to introduce it to new students remains an open question. Likewise, the identification of appropriate instructional strategies for the diverse topics that constitute the average curriculum remains open to debate. One approach considered by a number of practitioners in CS education…

Visual program simulation (VPS) is a new, interactive form of educational program visualisation, in which learners use graphical controls to direct a program's execution rather than simply watching an animation of it. In this article, we report on a qualitative empirical study of novice programmers learning through VPS. From an analysis of…

As punishment in the biblical story of Moses the slaves were told they had to make bricks without straw. This was impossible because bricks made without straw had the appearance of strength and function but could not withstand the proof of actual use. The slaves' punishment was therefore not only to make bricks, but also to find the straw on their…