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A software tool for teaching Data Structures

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Published:01 August 1978Publication History
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Abstract

Our Data Structures Course, first taught in 1973, was originally conceived as the keystone course of our computer science curriculum. Our curriculum's original design was influenced by Curriculum '68 and the undergraduate computer science program at Penn State University. However, we had to adapt our program to our small college environment and include a curriculum track with a business emphasis. We felt that regardless of which track in our program a student might follow, theory/systems or business/DP, there must be a strong nucleus common to both tracks. For this reason we concentrated on developing four strong courses that would be given as the freshman and sophomore year component of our curriculum.

As part of this, we also saw the need for software tools to support these courses. From this, a structured programming preprocessor evolved. However, as part of this preprocessor we included timing and dynamic storage allocation features. Through a strong emphasis on structured programming that begins with our first computer science course, our second course introduces many discrete structure concepts-queues, stacks, trees, graphs, etc... Our third course is a course in assembler level programming and computer organization. These courses provide a strong foundation for our Data Structures course.

References

  1. 1 Beidler, John and John Meinke, "PLUS-An Approach to Programming Emphasizing Analysis and Documentation", IEEE Workshop, Williamsburg, VA, July 1977.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  2. 2 Beidler, John and John Meinke, "Data Structures for Sophomores", AEDS Conference, Atlanta, GA, May 1978.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  3. 3 C3S, "Curriculum Recommendations", SIGCSE Bulletin, August 1977.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  4. 4 Meinke, John and John Beidler, "Experience with a Computer Science Curriculum in a Small College":, IEEE Curriculum Workshop, Orlando, FLA, February 1978.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  5. 5 Pfaltz, John, Computer Data Structures, McGraw Hill, 1977. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  6. 6 Tremblay, Jean Paul, and Paul Sorenson, Introduction to Data Structures with Applications, McGraw Hill, 1976. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library

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  1. A software tool for teaching Data Structures

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                  • Published in

                    cover image ACM SIGCSE Bulletin
                    ACM SIGCSE Bulletin  Volume 10, Issue 3
                    Proceedings of the 9th SIGCSE symposium on Computer science education
                    August 1978
                    178 pages
                    ISSN:0097-8418
                    DOI:10.1145/953028
                    Issue’s Table of Contents
                    • cover image ACM Conferences
                      SIGCSE '78: Proceedings of the ninth SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
                      August 1978
                      178 pages
                      ISBN:9781450374347
                      DOI:10.1145/800130

                    Copyright © 1978 ACM

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                    Association for Computing Machinery

                    New York, NY, United States

                    Publication History

                    • Published: 1 August 1978

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