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Introductory instruction in programming

Published:01 January 1974Publication History
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Abstract

Cornell, like most other large schools, has been struggling with the problem of introductory programming instruction for years. The problem is not yet solved but in the last few years we have done some experimenting and seem to have made some progress. The situation seems worth reporting so that others can perhaps benefit from what has been successful and avoid what has not.

The major problems seem to be volume and variety. Pedagogical techniques that are obviously effective with small classes are sometimes impractical when faced with more than a thousand students per year. This may be largely a question of economics, since one could presumably allocate enough resources to the task to have small classes, but this is just not realistic at Cornell and the real question becomes one of finding practical large-scale techniques. For example, the central computing facility at Cornell (a 360/65 under OS/HASP) cannot support a sufficient number of interactive terminals to make that mode of instruction practical.

Hence our solution must operate within the constraint of a conventional non-inter-active computer service.

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    • Published in

      cover image ACM SIGCSE Bulletin
      ACM SIGCSE Bulletin  Volume 6, Issue 1
      Proceedings of the 4th SIGCSE symposium on Computer science education
      February 1974
      195 pages
      ISSN:0097-8418
      DOI:10.1145/953057
      Issue’s Table of Contents
      • cover image ACM Conferences
        SIGCSE '74: Proceedings of the fourth SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
        January 1974
        194 pages
        ISBN:9781450374835
        DOI:10.1145/800183

      Copyright © 1974 ACM

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      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      • Published: 1 January 1974

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