Refactoring the CS1 course
Chuck Leska, John R. Rabung · Journal of computing sciences in colleges · 2005
Teaching object-oriented design and programming in CS1 can benefit from problems that stimulate student interest, that yield to natural analysis under an object-oriented approach, and that provide a basis for extension and reuse. Herein we describe our effort to design, develop, and implement a set of games intended to spawn such problems spanning nearly the entirety of concepts presented in our CS1 course. A primary target of our undertaking is to structure the games so that their development can be partitioned into sequential components suitable for use in lectures, labs, and student programming projects. The consequent course presentation focuses on problem solving, object-oriented concepts and design, and testing and handles syntax on a need-to-know basis within the context of the problem.