IMPROVING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A FIRST-SEMESTER PROGRAMMING COURSE

Abstract

The flipped classroom (FC) is a form of active learning in which in-class and out-of-class activities are flipped: students are expected to study a specific material outside the class and then be able to apply the knowledge to complete various activities related to the material during class under the guidance of an instructor. FC is often used together with team-based learning (TBL), where students work in teams to apply their knowledge as opposed to working individually on activities. During that last two years (2018 and 2019), the Department of Computer Science at Reykjavik University has experimented with applying FC and TBL in the first-semester programming course. In previous publications, we have described our experience using FC and TBL during the first experimental year (2018), i.e., the motivation for restructuring the course, the implementation, the results of two student surveys, and the outcome of several exams. In this paper, we describe the improvements made during the second experimental year (2019), both with regards to the online learning material and the course assessment. Furthermore, we compare the outcome of student surveys between the two years as well as students' performance on various exams. The results of a student survey given in the second year show that students' attitudes towards the FC approach were much more positive compared to the previous year. We argue that this is due to the specific changes made to the online material and the assessment of programming projects in class. Finally, it is interesting that the failure rates in the course in 2019 are much lower than the failure rates in 2018.

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Pages
Volume 1, pp.314-324
Year
2020