Introduction to programming for engineers following the parachute paradigm

Authors:
M. Gerardo M. Sarria
Affiliations:
Universidad Javeriana-Cali, Colombia
Venue:
FIE'09 Proceedings of the 39th IEEE international conference on Frontiers in education conference
Year:
2009

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Abstract

Each generation of students poses a great challenge to teaching/learning methodologies. The current generation of students always tries to avoid the abstract things; they need concrete things in order to understand the world. In this paper we propose a new approach of how and what to teach in the introduction to programming course for engineers. We believe the classic approach of teaching programming by teaching a programming language is no longer appropriate for the new generations of students. We use the idea of the parachute paradigm used in specification of models to gradually introduce the notions of programming instead of the syntax and semantics of a programming language.