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Coping with Java as the core CS educational language: an evolutionary experience

Published: 06 May 2011 Publication History

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the impact of changing our core CS1, CS2 programming language to Java. We review some of the challenges encountered and their impact on students' performance. After a faltering start using the Objects First methodology, we were able to refocus our curriculum using a Fundamentals First approach which resulted in less student frustration and lower course attrition. Over the course of the past decade Java has slowly become a unifying thread through a significant number of programming courses in our diploma and university transfer computing science programs.

References

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Arnow, David M., Weiss, Gerald, Java: an Object Oriented Approach - Java 2 update. (c) 2000 Addison Wesley Longman Inc. ISBN 0-201-61272-0
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Bailey, Duane A. Java Structures: data structures in Java for the principled programmer. (c) 1999 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. ISBN 0-07-289179-3
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Bruce K. Controversy on How to Teach CS1: A discussion on the SIGCSE-members mailing list. Inroads - The SIGCSE Bulletin, Volume 36, Number 4, 2004, pp. 29--34.
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Decker R., Hirshfield S., The Top Ten Reasons Why OOP Can't be Taught in CS1, SIGCSE 94--3/94, Phoenix, Arizona. pp. 7--13.
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Dingle A., Zander C., Assessing the Ripple Effect of CS1 Language, Consortium for Computing in Small Colleges, May 2001, pp. 85--94
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Gal-Ezer J, Vilner, T., & Zur, E. Has the Paradigm Shift in CS1 a Harmful Effect on Data Structures Courses: A Case Study, SIGCSE "09, March 3--7, 2009, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA. pp. 126--130
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Gregg D., Ficocelli L., A Java Based CS1 Course: Not Gentile Enough, WCCCE'03, Courtney B. C.
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Liang, Y. Daniel, Introduction to Java Programming. (c) 2004 Pearson Education Inc. ISBN 0-13-222158-6
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Miller B., Ranum D., Freedom to Succeed: A Three Course Introductory Sequence using Python and Java, Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges, 2006, pp. 106--116
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Reges, S. Back to Basics in CS1 and CS2, ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, Volume 38, Issue 1, 2006, pp. 293--297.
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Roumani H., Practice What You Preach: Full Separation of Concerns in CS1/CS2, SIGSCE'06, March 1--5, 2006 Houston Texas.
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Sajaniemi J., Hu C., Teaching Programming: Going beyond "Objects First", University of Joensuu, Department of Computer Science, Report A-2006-1
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Vilner, T., Zur, E. & Gal-Ezer J. Fundamental Concepts of CS1: Procedural vs. Object Oriented Paradigm - A Case Study, ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, Volume 39, Issue 3, 2007, pp. 171--175.

Cited By

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  • (2018)Integrating A Career Preparedness Module into CS2 Curricula Through The Teaching C++ and Java Side-by-SideProceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3159450.3159552(592-597)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2018
  • (2017)My Digital HandProceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3017680.3017800(549-554)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2017
  • (2015)Teaching computer programmingProceedings of the 2015 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE.2015.7344184(1-9)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2015

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  1. Coping with Java as the core CS educational language: an evolutionary experience

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      WCCCE '11: Proceedings of the 16th Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education
      May 2011
      71 pages
      ISBN:9781450307925
      DOI:10.1145/1989622
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Published: 06 May 2011

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      Author Tags

      1. CS1
      2. CS2
      3. Java
      4. OOP
      5. fundamentals first
      6. objects first

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      WCCCE '11
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      WCCCE '11: Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education
      May 6 - 7, 2011
      British Columbia, Prince George, Canada

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      Overall Acceptance Rate 78 of 117 submissions, 67%

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      • (2018)Integrating A Career Preparedness Module into CS2 Curricula Through The Teaching C++ and Java Side-by-SideProceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3159450.3159552(592-597)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2018
      • (2017)My Digital HandProceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education10.1145/3017680.3017800(549-554)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2017
      • (2015)Teaching computer programmingProceedings of the 2015 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE.2015.7344184(1-9)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2015

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