Algorithm Visualization - Don't Teach, Let'em Play
Luděk Kučera · 2025
The poster describes how experience with the author's algorithm visualization environment (AVE), Algovision (www.algovision.org), was used to propose and implement a four-layer AVE architecture. The most innovative part of the architecture - the lowest layer, called the animator layer - allows learners to perform atomic visual actions ''manually'' using a mouse and other interface devices. The main intention was to fully implement the principles of Cognitive Constructivism, exemplified in algorithm visualization (AV) by the (Extended) Engagement Taxonomy, which the author considers one of the most appropriate epistemological approaches to AV. The benefits of the animator layer in the new architecture are demonstrated through an experiment involving two groups of high school students, who were learning algorithms for binary search trees - a topic typically taught in undergraduate data structures and algorithms (DSA) courses - and working independently with the AVE, guided only indirectly by the instructor.