Leveraging students knowledge: introducing CS 1 concepts
Jody Paul · Journal of computing sciences in colleges · 2006
This paper presents a means to leverage students' a priori knowledge of fundamental concepts from the CS-1 body of knowledge. We demonstrate how the pedagogic principles of interestingness, utilization of existing memory structures, and cross-contextual reminding can be applied to improve absorption, accessibility and transferability of core Computer Science knowledge. We also describe an experiential learning activity that confirms students' familiarity with fundamental object oriented concepts and is appropriate for use in the first week of a CS-1 course. The activity addresses object oriented modeling and analysis and reduces potential confusion about references to things and the things themselves.