Using a low-cost open source hardware development platform in teaching young students programming skills
Lawrence W. Hill, Steven M. Ciccarelli · 2013
The teaching of programming skills to young students is often described by those educators involved as problematic at best. Student issues like mathematical maturity, readiness for complex thought, basic problem solving skills, short attention span especially related to the boredom of traditional programming teaching methodologies, and the lack of exciting problems and their solutions with respect to programming assignments contribute to the angst of many a programming instructor. A small fraction of students who "were just made for programming" always seem to succeed at whatever programming problem is given to them. However, a majority of students, especially precollege and college freshmen tend to have difficulty in overcoming these issues. It is with that observation that something new, in terms of programming pedagogy, needed to be investigated by this paper's authors.