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Abstract. Scholars agree on the importance of incorporating use of version control systems (VCSs) into computing curricula, so as to be able to prepare students for today's distributed and collaborative work places. One of the present-day distributed version control systems (DVCSs) is Git, the system we have used on several courses. In this paper, we report on the challenges for learning and using the system based on a survey data collected from a project-based course and our own teaching experiences during several different kinds of computing courses. The results of this analysis are discussed and recommendations are made.

This article reports on an action research project on improving a functional programming course by moving towards a practical and flexible study environment-flipped and blended classroom. Teaching the topic of functional programming was found to be troublesome using a traditional lectured course format. The need to increase students' amount of practice emerged, while subsequently challenges relating to students' independent practical coursework were observed. Particular concerns relating to group work, learning materials, and the attribute of flexibility were investigated during the third action research cycle. The research cycle was analyzed using a qualitative survey on students' views, teacher narrative, and students' study activity data. By this third research cycle, we have found that (1) the 'call for explanation' is an apt conceptualization for supporting independent work, and in particular for the design of learning materials, (2) use of studentselected groups that can be flexibly resized or even disbanded enables spontaneous peer support and can avoid frustration about group work, and (3) students greatly appreciate the high degree of flexibility in the course arrangements but find that it causes them to slip from their goals. The project has improved our understanding of a successful implementation of the target course based on group work and learning materials in the context of independent study, while the attribute of flexibility revealed a contradiction that indicates the need for further action.

Several studies have reported positive experiences with TestDriven Development (TDD) but the results still diverge. In this study we aim to improve understanding on TDD in educational context. We conducted two experiments on TDD in a master's level university course. The research setting was slightly changed in the second experiment and this paper focuses on comparing the differences between the two rounds. We analyzed the students' perceptions and the difficulties they faced with TDD. The given assignment clearly affected the students' reflections so that the more difficult assignment evoked a richer discussion among the students. Additionally, some insights into teaching TDD are discussed.

Several programming environments have been constructed to facilitate novice programming at K-12 and CS0/CS1 levels. The environments can be roughly divided into those using visual or textual programming. This paper presents a K-12 game programming course concept based on textual programming. The concept is based on an easy-to-use C# library, called Jypeli, built on top of Microsoft XNA Framework. The library tries to maintain advantages of visual programming and avoid challenges of textual programming. In particular, the library helps beginners to program their first games in a short period of time and without a heavy syntactic load. The course concept and an initial evaluation consisting of student feedback and a literature rationale are presented.