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A problem-based interface design and programming course

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Published:01 March 1998Publication History
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Abstract

This paper describes a course that addresses two important issues: introducing interface design and programming at the same time as helping students develop life-long learning skills. Many computer science programmes could well be based on the assumption that the computing world is still oriented towards batch processing. Yet, interactive systems are central to information technology and the interface to a system is very important. Our courses introduces students to this area. At the same time, programming tools for building interfaces are an excellent example of very fast changing technology. Our course explicitly aims to help students learn to how to learn about such tools.The course is based on the approach called problem-based learning: the need to solve an authentic problem drives the definition of appropriate learning goals and strategies. An unusual feature of the course is the interweaving of the learning about programming tools and the classic skiIls of user interface design. We describe our course and its evaluation in a class of over 100 senior year undergraduate computer science students.

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        • Published in

          cover image ACM SIGCSE Bulletin
          ACM SIGCSE Bulletin  Volume 30, Issue 1
          Mar. 1998
          376 pages
          ISSN:0097-8418
          DOI:10.1145/274790
          Issue’s Table of Contents
          • cover image ACM Conferences
            SIGCSE '98: Proceedings of the twenty-ninth SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
            March 1998
            396 pages
            ISBN:0897919947
            DOI:10.1145/273133

          Copyright © 1998 ACM

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          Association for Computing Machinery

          New York, NY, United States

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          • Published: 1 March 1998

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