PILET: PYTHON INTERACTIVE
LEARNING TOOL
Presented by:
Bedour Alshaigy
Supervisory team:
Dr.Samia Kamal
Dr.Faye Mitchel
Dr.Clare Martin
Introduction
• With to the rapid growth of internet technologies and its application,
there has been an exploding demand in the industry for graduates
with computing expertise.
• However, introductory programming courses are currently facing
incremental dropout and failure rates by 40% at university level [1]
especially after completing the first year [2].
1. Manaris, 2007, Dropping CS enrollments: or the emperor's new clothes?
2. Beaubouef, 2005, Why the high attrition rate for computer science students: some thoughts and observations.
Programming Problems
• Although several factors have been attributed to students’
failure to program we are far from fully understanding the
underlying reasons behind different progression rates
amongst them.
• The problems include:
• Understanding the syntax and semantics of a programming
language.
• Challenging programming concepts.
• Development of programming misconceptions.
• Code reading and tracing.
• Debugging and error finding.
Programming Problems
Authors
(Allert, 2004)
Mental Model
Learning
Style
Teaching
Methodology
x
x
x
(Beaubouef
and Mason,
2005)
x
(Lahtinen et
al., 2005)
x
x
(McGettrick
et al., 2005)
x
x
(Milne and
Rowe, 2002)
x
(Robins et al.,
2003)
x
Programming
Language
Program
Comprehensi
on
Programming
Concepts
Cognitive
Skills
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
(Tan et al.,
2009)
x
x
x
x
(Zander et al.,
2009)
x
No. Times
Outlined
3
6
x
6
5
x
x
4
4
4
Learning Styles
• The Felder-Silverman Learning Style Model (Felder and
Silverman, 1988) classifies learners as:
Teaching Methodologies
Why Python?
• Expressive syntax and meaningful semantics.
• User friendly error feedback and powerful debugging
tools.
• Produces visually appealing GUI (graphical user
interface) components.
• Facilitates easy transition to different programming
paradigms and computer science modules.
PILeT
Experiment
Control group
19
CS Circles
19
PILeT
19
The experiment lasted 75 minutes followed by a quiz consisting of 3 programming
questions.
Concepts tested:
Selection statements and for loop.
Results
Average marks
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Selection statement
for loop
Control Group
CS Circle
PILeT
Threats to Validity
• Learning styles is pseudoscience.
• Learning styles are based on self reported questionnaires.
• Learning styles are subject to change.
• It is expensive to customise instructions based on
learning styles.
• The problem is not programming, it is problem solving.
Thank you!
Questions?