Introducing Computer Science to High School Students Through Logic Programming

Abstract

This paper investigates how high school students in an introductory computer science (CS) course approach computing in the logic programming (LP) paradigm. This qualitative study shows how novice students operate within the LP paradigm while engaging in foundational computing concepts and skills: students are engaged in a cyclical process of abstraction, reasoning, and creating representations of their ideas in code while also being informed by the (procedural) requirements and the revision/debugging process. As these computing concepts and skills are also expected in traditional approaches to introductory K-12 CS courses, this paper asserts that LP is a viable paradigm choice for high school novices.

A Preliminary Data-driven Analysis of Common Errors Encountered by Novice SPARC Programmers

“…Finally, for logic and reasoning, there is evidence that children ages 11 to 15 already demonstrate substantial knowledge of natural language and the logical use of symbols (see, for example, the work by [15] and [18]). In fact, this conclusion is supported by the initial ASP-based teaching and learning in middle and high schools [19,20].…”

“…Answer Set Programming (ASP), a modern development of Logic Programming, has been recently proposed as a basis for integrating computing and STEM subjects, and the initial results have been promising [19,20,21]. This approach is desirable for a number of reasons.…”

“…Second, ASP arguably offers essential support for abstraction and programming, two of the core computing concepts that are well accepted by the computing education community [11]. Details of these arguments can be found in [19,20]. Third, as a purely declarative language, it is considered more natural for students to learn.…”