Teaching objects in context

Authors:
Grant Braught;Tim Wahls
Affiliations:
Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA;Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA
Venue:
Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges
Year:
2008

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Abstract

Although there are many practical and pedagogical reasons for teaching objectsfirst in the CS I course, this approach can be difficult for both students and instructors. Students in the introductory class are not ready to design and develop applications that are complex enough to highlight the benefits of object orientation, and it is difficult for instructors to motivate the use of objects for simple programming tasks. The authors have designed a set of programming assignments that address these concerns. In these assignments, students declare fields and implement method bodies for one or more classes that integrate with instructor-provided code to produce a (relatively) complex application. As a result, the applications produced can be graphical and engaging, and can expose students to areas of computer science beyond programming.