The Godparent Plan: A Pedagogical Strategy for CS1 Accompaniment and CS2 Pedagogical Enhancement

Abstract

Abstract-Courses such as CS1 and CS2 can present an interesting pedagogical challenge when it comes to the theory-practice relationship, along with aspects that involve the course's logistics, the programming language used, and the characteristics of the students involved in the process. This study presents an innovative didactic approach, oriented towards the accompaniment of CS1 students by CS2 students at Universidad El Bosque, Colombia, seeking with this Godparent Plan, to provide a personalized accompaniment to first semester students, whereby CS2 students enhance their domain over concepts and skills while accompanying, explaining and teaching younger peers. The results of this study are favorable, outlining a didactic scheme that can be adapted and replicated in other curricular scenarios.Keywords-active learning, validated learning, pedagogical innovation, computer science education, CS1 didactics, CS2 didactics IntroductionTeaching in introductory courses, such as CS1 and CS2, poses an interesting pedagogical challenge as far as the theory-practice relationship is concerned. The instructor in charge must ease the immersion into the programming world for students coursing the first academic year, articulating high-quality standards in conjunction with motivation and didactic strategies to keep them motivated, confident and projected to continue in the program.To enhance the pedagogical approach in these courses, within a curricular and logistic context that does not favor the articulation of constructivist approaches for active learning, a CS2 section was adapted, so that its students could work individually as godparents or tutors, with students from a CS1 section, both sections taught by the same instructor.Although a general approach would invite to question the role of this Godparent Plan with respect to the CS1 course, throughout this document we will present the role of this proposal as a didactic strategy for meaningful learning in CS2, with the purpose to answer the following research question: How effective is peer tutoring for iJEP

Aula invertida en cursos consecutivos de Programación (Programación I y II)

“…La enseñanza inicial de la programación es un proceso complejo y presenta desafíos en relación a la actualización de contenidos y prácticas desde la perspectiva pedagógica [1,2].…”

“…Los cursos de Programación I (P1) y Programación II (P2), que corresponden tradicionalmente a los dos primeros cursos consecutivos en la secuencia del área Programación de carreras de Computación y similares, fueron modificados. "Cursos como P1 y P2 pueden presentar un desafío pedagógico interesante cuando se trata de la relación teoríapráctica, junto con aspectos que involucran la implementación del curso, el lenguaje de programación utilizado y las características de los estudiantes involucrados en el proceso" [2].…”