Introduction
The origin
The earliest ideas for the described approach stemmed from
the time I was writing the book "Programming Languages II:
Object-Oriented Programming" during 1997 for the Hellenic Open
University.
The basic paper
Part of this work is described in the paper: A
Constructivism-Based Approach to Teach Object-Oriented Programming
by K.Thramboulidis, Journal of
Informatics Education and Research, 2003. The work has then evolved into a complete course outline
for the introduction of the Object-Oriented Programming Paradigm. Related
publications.
A brief description
The
whole approach is motivated by the theoretical viewpoint of
constructivism that stresses the importance of the continuity of
knowledge growth, based on existing knowledge. Experience from every
day life is used to anchor new knowledge in constructing software
systems.
The
Goodys example, a real-world system
was adopted to create the conceptual framework of the OO paradigm. We
utilize informal use-cases, class diagrams, and object interaction
diagrams to facilitate students in exploiting their real-world
experience and building on it the conceptual framework of the
object-oriented paradigm. The approach is characterized as
software-engineering-centered and more precisely as a design-first
approach.
Java
was adopted to introduce the constructs necessary for the realization
of this framework. A Lego construction approach was adopted to
guide students to first focus on the basics of integrating existing
components and later on building new ones.
A set
of assignments based on the Reverse Polish Notation Calculator was
developed to guide students to implement their own GUI calculator
following a well-defined step-by-step development process.
Using the work
The work is in progress. The most part of the material is
still in Greek but a translation process is currently active. You can
email me at thrambo@ece.upatras.gr.
I would appreciate any feedback on the structure and content of it. A
password is required for some pages to be accessed. You may contact me
by e-mail to get the authentication.
Instructors If you are an instructor interested in using
this material in your class, please contact me via email (thrambo@ece.upatras.gr)
to let me know. It is a pleasure for me to know that this material is being used, but
I appreciate feedback on who is using it, in what course, etc. For more detail, see
terms of use.
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