5. DESIGNING A HYBRID PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING (PBL) COURSE: A CASE STUDY OF FIRST YEAR COMPUTER SCIENCE IN NUI, MAYNOOTH.
Jackie O'Kelly · 2005
The majority of students entering university in Ireland come directly from second level education, where the pressure is on students to achieve points to secure a place in university. This pressure leads students to approach learning as a task in which they memorise, store and reproduce information. This type of learning, commonly called ‘surface learning’, is not a suitable learning strategy in computer science, as the ability to solve problems is a vital element within the computer science discipline. In addition to solving problems, another essential skill that must be mastered by computer science students is computer programming. This involves students learning ‘a programming language’, which can be viewed as a set of formal specifications involving syntax, semantics and vocabulary. This in effect means that first year computer science students are required to understand a problem, develop an algorithm to solve the problem and implement a solution to the algorithm using a programming language that will result in the production of a concrete computer programme.