The proposed project, sCool, is an adaptive game-based learning experience designed for STEM education. In this work, we present a new iteration of sCool in efforts to further examine contributing factors of engagement, usability, and comprehension. The newly developed game experience for acquiring object-oriented programming skills is divided into two parts: concept learning and practical challenge. The concept learning part teaches students theoretical lessons of programming through fun gameplay. The practical challenge part allows students to practice programming by completing tasks. This project presents several new game types for both the concept learning and practical challenge parts. The development of these game types spreads across two phases. The first phase introduces two new game types and focuses on extending sCool to support learning object-oriented programming and improve student’s learning comprehension. The second phase builds off of the first phase, introducing another new game type to improve the object-oriented programming learning experience and the game’s overall usability and engagement. During the first phase, three experiments were conducted in a classroom setting with a computer science teacher. Conducting a study involving a total of 39 school students and three teachers, we are able to successfully display an enhanced understanding of different programming concepts. During the second phase, a single experiment was held remotely among a wide group of people, and the participants were self-guided by an instruction document and the sCool application. Conducting a study with 25 participants, we are able to show a significant improvement in the game’s usability and engagement. For future works, further evaluations in-classroom and over a longer course will be useful in assessing the new game type’s effectiveness in teaching object oriented programming. Furthermore, the game should be expanded to support learning more complex concepts in object oriented programming.

In the scope of this thesis, we designed a language for programming education. At first, we described eight existing tools for learning programming and identified key features in the learning process. Second, we designed an educational domain-specific language Eddie. Eddie is suitable for teenagers and adults who want to learn programming. It uses a domain based on Karel the Robot language, where users can control a robot character in a two-dimensional grid. We implemented a prototype of Eddie using the MPS Language Workbench and its projectional editor. The Eddie language gradually introduces loops, conditionals, variables, functions, and objects. Eddie programs can be created, executed and visualized in the Eddie Studio IDE. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Submitted by Marlene Santos (marlene.bc.ufg@gmail.com) on 2016-09-12T17:34:17Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Rodrigo Elias Francisco - 2016.pdf: 1520504 bytes, checksum: ca44a0447aeffaf5c78c2b28a6859e69 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2016-09-15T12:37:53Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Rodrigo Elias Francisco - 2016.pdf: 1520504 bytes, checksum: ca44a0447aeffaf5c78c2b28a6859e69 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-15T12:37:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Rodrigo Elias Francisco - 2016.pdf: 1520504 bytes, checksum: ca44a0447aeffaf5c78c2b28a6859e69 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-30 / This dissertation approaches Online Judge in teaching Introductory Programming (CS1). Initially there was an exploratory research on BOCA system in teaching CS1, which brought experiences and data of student interactions with the system, which, supported by Systematic Literature Review (RSL), contributed to defining the requirements for the system meets the discipline of CS1 and guided continuing research. In the second phase, there was the aim to solve specific problems identified in the previous phase, and measuring the difficulty of CS1 problems and support for plagiarism identification in CS1 activities. The solution of these problems included RSL, practical experiences with writing and execution algorithms, comparison of the results with the expected results, and comparison of the proposed approaches to the identified in the literature. The strategy to measure the difficulty of problems CS1 proposed works with the height of a tree mounted to sets and sub-sets of nested code into a program and the amount of related subjects. The strategy to support the identification of plagiarism proposal works with the Edit Distance algorithm processing and normalization techniques in preprocessing, and it is a highly adapted proposal to the reality of the data used in this research (programs written in C with few lines of code by students CS1). Experience has shown the complexity of applying computing to education, which often works with subjective data, it was necessary to raise the difficulty of the problems in view of the students and the teacher’s view of the existence of plagiarism in peer programs, whose views are quite variables. It is suggested the creation of multidisciplinary teams to the evolution of the area (with professionals of computing, statistics, psychology and pedagogy) with a focus on validation and method used for research. / Esta dissertação aborda Juiz Online no ensino de Programação Introdutória (CS1). Inicialmente houve uma pesquisa exploratória sobre o sistema BOCA no ensino de CS1, que trouxe experiências e dados de interações de alunos com o sistema, que, apoiados pela Revisão Sistemática da Literatura (RSL), contribuíram para a definição dos requisitos necessários para que o sistema atenda à disciplina de CS1 e guiaram a continuidade da pesquisa. Em um segundo momento, o objetivo foi resolver problemas específicos levantados na fase anterior, sendo a medição da dificuldade de problemas de CS1 e o apoio à identificação de plágio em atividades de CS1. A solução desses problemas contou com RSL, experiências práticas com escrita e execução de algoritmos, comparação dos resultados obtidos com os resultados esperados, e comparação das abordagens propostas com as identificadas na literatura. A estratégia proposta para medir a dificuldade de problemas de CS1 trabalha com a altura de uma árvore montada com conjuntos e sub-conjuntos de códigos aninhados num programa e a quantidade de assuntos relacionados. A estratégia para apoiar a identificação de plágio proposta trabalha com o algoritmo Distância de Edição no processamento e técnicas de normalização no pré-processamento. Trata-se de uma proposta fortemente adaptada à realidade dos dados utilizados nesta pesquisa (programas escritos em C, com poucas linhas de código, por alunos de CS1). A experiência mostrou a complexidade em aplicar a computação à educação, que trabalha frequentemente com dados subjetivos. Foi necessário levantar a dificuldade dos problemas na visão dos alunos e a visão de professores sobre a existência de plágio em pares de programas, cujas opiniões são bastante variáveis. Sugere-se para a evolução da área, que sejam criadas equipes multidisciplinares (com profissionais de computação, estatística, psicologia e pedagogia) e haja um foco na validação e no método usado para as pesquisas.

Digital technology is developing rapidly, and educators are currently in the process of exploring what opportunities new technology can have for learning and teaching. This applies not least to the field of education in programming, as   learning to program is a great challenge for many students. Therefore, educators and researchers have sought to find educationally effective digital learning resources to facilitate the programming learning process. In this thesis, multimodal online learning environments, providing accessible and learner-focused learning activities, and multimodal software visualizations, striving at concretizing the abstract building blocks in programming languages, were exploratory investigated. The aim was to expand the understanding of how digital learning resources can be used to support students’ understanding of basic programming concepts and dynamics. Empirical studies were conducted at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV) at Stockholm University, Sweden. The data were collected during introductory programming courses in which the author had an active role as designer of the software visualizations, teacher and researcher. In these courses, the digital learning resources were explored as additional course resources. The research was conducted both through field experiments and case studies and data was collected using questionnaires, interviews and group discussions. Results strengthened the claims that abstract phenomena like programming can be made visible and understandable through visualization, in particular program dynamics.  When visualizations illustrated more conceptual elements, further guidance was required, to facilitate students’ interpretation and understanding. Regarding the online learning environments, guiding to the right learning pathways was the most critical factor found from the results. When adequate instructions and feedback were lacking in the learning environments, users became cognitively overloaded and disoriented. Finally, findings in all compiled studies indicate that teacher planning and orchestration of the learning situations should be conducted with more reflection.

Den 9 mars 2017 beslutade regeringen att skolans styrdokument ska förtydligas i syfte att stärka elevernas digitala kompetens. Detta innebär bland annat att programmering från och med den 1 juli 2018 ska införas i matematikundervisningen på högstadiet och gymnasiet. En utmaning med detta är att lärare inte har kompetens eller verktyg för att implementera programmering i matematikundervisningen på ett bra sätt. Zifro är ett digitalt läromedel som försöker lösa detta problem genom att ge lärare ett material som ska vara lätt att ta till sig oavsett erfarenhet av programmering och även en pedagogisk kodmiljö för eleverna. En kvalitativ studie har genomförts med observationer och intervjuer som metod. Tre lärare och en VFU-student på olika skolor deltog i studien genom att använda två av Zifros aktiviteter i sin undervisning. Syftet med studien är att undersöka vad lärare tycker om materialet och hur det förhåller sig till läroplanen för att utveckla underlag för förbättringsmöjligheter. En slutsats från studien är att Zifro enligt lärare är ett bra läromedel och inga större förändringar behöver göras på materialet som redan finns. Det är ett av få läromedel inom programmering som existerar idag med en klar koppling till läroplanen och matematiken. Däremot behöver det finnas fler aktiviteter för att skolor eller arbetslag ska vilja köpa in det. Förutom fler aktiviteter likt de som redan finns fast inom andra matematiska områden skulle det även kunna finnas webbaserade test samt mer öppna uppgifter där eleven får vara mer kreativ. Ytterligare konkreta förslag på mindre förbättringar, som ett facit läraren kan skriva ut i pappersform, samt att Zifro kan ta fram en kurs för lärare presenteras under diskussion och slutsatser. / On March 9, 2017, the Swedish government decided that the school's governing documents should be clarified in order to strengthen students' digital skills. This means, among other things, that programming from 1 July 2018 will be included in the mathematics in lower and upper secondary school. A challenge with this is that teachers neither possess the skills or tools to properly implement programming in mathematics education. Zifro is a digital teaching aid that tries to solve this problem by giving teachers a user-friendly material regardless of programming experience and also an educational code environment for students. A qualitative study has been conducted with observations and interviews as a method. Three teachers and a VFU student at different schools in Stockholm, Sweden, participated in the study using two of ZIFRO's activities in their teaching. The purpose of the study is to investigate teachers’ opinions about the material and how it relates to the curriculum in order to develop improvement suggestions. A conclusion from the study is that, according to teachers, Zifro is a good teaching aid and no major changes are needed to the already existing material. It is one of few existing teaching materials in programming with a clear connection to the curriculum and mathematics. However, Zifro must provide more activities so that schools will want to buy it. Apart from more activities like the already existing ones, but within other mathematical fields, these activities can be web-based tests and more open tasks where the student can be more creative. Further concrete suggestions for minor improvements, as well as how Zifro could develop a course for teachers, are presented below the headings discussion and conclusions.

This dissertation proposal begins with a discussion about how the education of game programmers was not meeting the needs of the game industry. With this problem identified, this study proceeded to verify the existence of disparities of current game programming curricula. The findings from the literature review were able to: (a) justify the need to develop a career-oriented instructional design model for education of game programming; (b) identify the disparities that caused the mismatch of instructional content between academia and the game industry; (c) review research that contributed to the identification of three disparities: curriculum objectives and structure, instructional content, and curriculum orientation; (d) discuss theories and models of instructional design, student engagement, and related pedagogies; and (e) explore how these theories and models might be instrumental in improving education of game programming. The results obtained from the literature review were also used to formulate guidelines for investigating the status of currently available curricula in game programming. The research design and the research methods utilized by this study to examine the research questions are also described in detail. Four research questions were used to guide the study with the goal of identifying or forming a guiding principle for developing an instructional design model for a career-oriented education of game programming professionals. The results of this study indicated that all of the investigated game programming curricula had not yet produced graduates whom the game companies are interested in hiring as game programmers and that educational institutions had missed an opportunity to equip students with the proper programming skills for the game industry. Furthermore, this study identified that an accreditation standard as well as an industry-accepted instructional design model was not yet available to reflect the personnel hiring requirements of the game industry. The curriculum and coursework must be career-oriented and instructional content must center on game programming. Game programming pedagogy must lead to development of core competencies. In reviewing these findings, the guiding principles for developing an instructional design model became clear. The contribution of this study was to present an immediately applicable instructional design model that could be used as a basis by schools to create or fine tune their game programming curricula. The completed model is provided as an attachment to this dissertation. This proposed instructional design model is intended to provide an initial basis towards a solution to minimize the disparities between academia and the game industry in educational areas of curriculum orientation, curriculum objectives and structure, and instructional content. As with any problem solution, future study and analysis should be done in order to optimize and standardize a game programming curriculum that will be accepted by the game industry as well as accredited by a mutually accepted accreditation body.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T16:57:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Antonio Jose de Barros Neto.pdf: 2526978 bytes, checksum: f3ee9a3acdd75ca8c9ebf5d93ead8a59 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-04-29 / This study aimed to investigate whether the construction of Didactic Mathematical Instruments with digital technology incorporated, together with a strategy based on creating didactic situations, could empower the future teachers of mathematics beyond the user condition. This study is justified because the use of technologies, from the most traditional and recently, digital, to teach and learn of Mathematics has been a constant concern in mathematics education since the creation of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI) in 1908. Since then, the use of computers in mathematics education was the only issue to be focus of two ICMI studies: one in 1985 and another in 2006. In addition, researchers noted a change in focus of contributions to groups work and lectures in the latest edition of the International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME) in relation to digital technologies: first, the focus was on the impact of technology in the curriculum and student learning, and more recently has become in the teacher preparation . It is believed that during undergrad studies, with time and the appropriate didactic organization, the new programmable microworlds, like Scratch, along with their robotic interfaces can be used in the construction of Didactic Mathematical Instruments with digital technology incorporated as teaching strategy to empower future teachers regarding computer programming with educational purposes in the teaching of Mathematics. To conduct this research, teaching activities were designed and implemented by which the subjects, students of two classes of the second year of the Licenciatura em Matemática from the State University of Pará (UEPA) in group, and time points individually they had to use Scratch and interfaces mentioned to acquire fluency, thinking together and with the technology, design and develop themes and teaching strategies in an investigative route, mediated by technology in movements of action, formulation and validation characteristic of the Theory of Didactic Situations (TDS). The results showed that groups of students involved in the activities have achieved the necessary implementations, showing personal commitment, sense of ownership, creativity and fluency in technology used / Este trabalho teve como objetivo investigar se a construção de Instrumentos Matemáticos Didáticos com tecnologia digital incorporada, em conjunto com uma estratégia baseada na criação de situações didáticas, poderia empoderar o futuro professor de matemática para além da condição de usuário. Tal estudo se justifica, pois o uso de tecnologias, desde as mais tradicionais e, recentemente, as digitais, no ensino e aprendizagem de Matemática tem sido uma preocupação constante na área da Educação Matemática desde a criação da International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI) em 1908. Desde então, o uso de computadores na educação matemática foi o único tema a ser foco de 2 (dois) Estudos ICMI: um em 1985 e outro em 2006. Além disso, pesquisadores notaram uma mudança no foco das contribuições para os grupos de trabalho e palestras nas mais recentes edições do International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME) com relação às tecnologias digitais: antes, o foco era no impacto da tecnologia no currículo e no aprendizado do aluno, e mais recentemente passou a ser na preparação do professor. Acredita-se que na formação inicial do professor de matemática, com o tempo e a organizacão didática adequados, os novos micromundos programáveis, como o Scratch, juntamente com suas interfaces robóticas, podem ser utilizados na construção de Instrumentos Matemáticos Didáticos com tecnologia digital incorporada como estratégia didática para empoderar os futuros professores em relação a programação de computadores com fins didáticos no âmbito do ensino de Matemática. Para realizar esta investigação, atividades de ensino foram elaboradas e aplicadas por meio das quais os sujeitos, alunos de duas turmas do 2o ano do curso de Licenciatura em Matemática da Universidade do Estado do Pará (UEPA), em grupo e, em momentos de avaliação, individualmente, tinham que usar o Scratch e as interfaces mencionadas para adquirir fluência, pensar em conjunto e com a tecnologia, elaborar e desenvolver temas e estratégias didáticas, em um percurso investigativo, mediado pelas tecnologias, em movimentos de ação, formulação e validação característicos da Teoria das Situações Didáticas (TSD). Os resultados apontaram que os grupos de alunos envolvidos nas atividades conseguiram realizar as implementações necessárias, demonstrando engajamento pessoal, senso de propriedade, criatividade e fluência na tecnologia utilizada

Syftet med studien var att undersöka vilka stöd som matematiklärare erbjudits relativt programmering i matematikundervisningen. Därtill avsåg studien att undersöka vad matematiklärare önskar av ett stöd relativt programmering i matematik. Två datainsamlingsmetoder användes: en webbaserad enkät, och en semistrukturerad intervju. 29 enkätsvar erhölls och tre intervjuer genomfördes. Urvalspopulationen för dessa var matematiklärare i Stockholmsområdet. De insamlade data bearbetades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys där olika kategorier med tillhörande koder framkom, för att beskriva lärares uppfattningar av begreppet lärarstöd samt lärarnas åsikter om lärarstöd. Av enkätsvaren erhölls att 11 av 29 lärare upplevde att de inte erbjudits stöd för programmering i matematikundervisningen. Baserat på studiens resultat utvecklades ett lärarstödförslag vars syfte är att motsvara lärarnas önskemål på lärarstöd. Lärarstödförslaget består av ett upplägg för kompetensutveckling och lektionsplaner. / The purpose of the study was to examine which aids relative to programming in mathematics education the mathematics teachers have been offered. Moreover, the study sought to examine the desiderata of the mathematics teachers, relative to aid in programming in mathematics education. Two means of collecting data were used: a web based questionnaire, and a semi structured interview. 29 responses to the questionnaire were collected and three interviews were conducted. The sample population for the study was mathematics teachers in the Stockholm region. The collected data were processed with qualitative content analysis where different categories and codes emerged. The categories and codes describe the teachers’ understanding of the term teacher-aid, and the teachers’ opinion of teacher-aid. The questionnaire responses indicate that 11 of 29 teachers did not perceive that they were offered aid relative to programming in mathematics education. A teacher-aid-proposal with the purpose to match the desiderata of the teachers with respect to teacher-aids. The teacher-aid-proposal consists of a competence development arrangement and lesson plans.

Predicting student performance is an important topic in academia, especially so in programming context, where identification of struggling students allows teachers to offer early and continuous assistance to help them improve their performance. It is thus essential to analyze student programming behavior to detect those at-risk students. This thesis uses data generated from 220 students in a master’s level programming course at a large European university. The students run unit tests in order to test their code when solving assignments, with a snapshot being taken of each test as it is executed. Unit testing is a method of testing software where individual units of source code are tested for correctness. A data set with simple features is derived from a database of snapshots and labeled with students’ grades. Then, the machine learning models support vector machine (SVM), naive Bayes (NB), random forest, and neural networks with one, two and three hidden layers each are trained, evaluated and performance is compared. The results show that SVM and neural networks models are likely the best performing all-rounders, with a possible naive Bayes selection depending on what goal one has. The thesis contributes by training machine learning models on students’ programming behavior. By arming teacher with models such as these, more students that need assistance can get in-time support and thus improve their performance. Future work can improve the models by using or combining other types of student data as features or use a larger data set. / Att förutsäga studenters prestationer är ett viktigt ämne inom akademin, särskilt i programmeringssammanhang, där identifiering av studenter som kämpar med sina studier gör det möjligt för lärare att erbjuda tidig och kontinuerlig hjälp för att hjälpa dem att förbättra sina prestationer. Det är därför viktigt att analysera studenternas programmeringsbeteende för att upptäcka dessa studenter som är vid risk. Denna uppsats använder data från 220 studenter i en programmeringskurs på masternivå vid ett stort europeiskt universitet. Studenterna kör enhetstester för att testa sin kod när de löser uppgifter, och en snapshot tas av varje test när det körs. Enhetstestning är en metod för att testa programvara där enskilda enheter av källkoden testas för korrekthet. En datamängd med enkla features härleds från en databas med snapshots och märks med studenternas betyg. Därefter tränas och utvärderas maskininlärningsmodellerna support vector machine (SVM), naive Bayes (NB), random forest och neurala nätverk med ett, två och tre dolda lager vardera och deras prestanda jämförs. Resultaten visar att SVM och neurala nätverk sannolikt är de bäst presterande allroundmodellerna, med ett möjligt naivt Bayes-val beroende på vilket mål man har. Uppsatsen bidrar genom att träna maskininlärningsmodeller på studenters programmeringsbeteende. Genom att utrusta lärare med modeller som dessa kan fler studenter som behöver hjälp få stöd i tid och därmed förbättra sina prestationer. Framtida arbete kan förbättra modellerna genom att använda eller kombinera andra typer av studentdata som features eller använda en större datamängd.

In 2018 the government of Sweden decided to include programming in elementary school. Therefore, the purpose of this report was to investigate whether or not the current Swedish third-grade programming curriculum was appropriate or not, and also to evaluate the viability of including a few additional programming concepts in the teaching material for grade three. To achieve this goal, a game incorporating Gamification was developed in order to assist in the teaching of these concepts, as well as the current curriculum, to a group of third-graders from a swedish school. There were 87 participants introduced to the different programming concepts by playing the game during theoretical lectures. The results suggests that the current curriculum can be expanded upon, and also that the additional concepts all seemed to be viable extensions. However, we believe that more research needs to be conducted in order to draw any definite conclusions. / År 2018 beslutade Sveriges regering att inkludera programmering i grundskolan. Syftet med denna rapport var därför att undersöka huruvida den nuvarande svenska programmeringskriterierna för årskurs tre är lämplig eller inte, samt att utvärdera möjligheten att inkludera några ytterligare programmeringskoncept i undervisningen för årskurs tre. För att uppnå detta mål utvecklades ett spel som innefattade Spelifiering (engelska: Gamification) för att underlätta undervisningen av dessa begrepp, såväl som den aktuella läroplanen, till en grupp av tredjeklassare från en svensk skola. Det var 87 deltagare som introducerades till de olika programmeringskoncepten genom att spela spelet under teoretiska föreläsningar. Resultaten tyder på att den nuvarande läroplanen kan utökas med koncepten som undersöks i denna studie. Vi tror emellertid att mer forskning måste genomföras för att dra några konkreta slutsatser.