IO2: Best Practices in Restructuring Computer Programming Course Plans

The second intellectual output (IO2) of the RECOM project focuses on the development of innovative and effective course plans for computer programming. The existing programming course plans in higher education often lack flexibility and fail to incorporate innovative online/hybrid instructional designs. Therefore, the aim of IO2 is to establish a new course plan that addresses these limitations and brings about expected impacts in programming education.

The objectives of the new course plan are as follows:

Assessing Student Performance: The new course plan aims to include creative components that go beyond traditional end-of-year examinations. It seeks to incorporate instructional components that assess and simulate student performance in solving engineering problems, allowing for a more comprehensive evaluation of their skills and knowledge.

Encouraging Active Learning: The new course plan strives to promote a student-centred approach, encouraging learners to take responsibility for their own learning. It aims to engage students actively in the learning process, fostering a deeper understanding of programming concepts and algorithms.

Flexibility in Instructional Design: IO2 aims to create a more flexible instructional design that allows for varied content choices, delivery methods, and assessment techniques. This flexibility enables educators to tailor their teaching to meet the learning objectives effectively.

Information Retrieval and Application: The new course plan seeks to guide both students and educators in finding, analysing, evaluating, and applying information relevant to the subject domain of programming and algorithms. This promotes critical thinking and problem-solving skills in the context of programming.

Integration with Online Learning Tools: The course plan incorporates instruments for online programming courses, such as Learning Management Systems (LMS). These tools enable the collection and analysis of digital homework and data, enhancing the learning experience for students.

Programming Skills: The new course plan focuses on developing essential programming skills, including program implementation, testing, debugging, and documentation. It also emphasizes understanding low-level input and output routines and common data structures.

The course plan strategy is designed to be transferable and applicable to various online/hybrid engineering courses. It serves as a core instructional design that can be adapted to suit the curriculum of diverse engineering disciplines. By establishing a model of transferability, the project aims to demonstrate how the new course plan can be used as a reference to select appropriate source tasks for different target tasks across engineering courses.

In conclusion, IO2 presents a set of best practices for restructuring computer programming course plans. By introducing innovative and flexible instructional designs, this output aims to improve the learning experience and outcomes for students studying programming and algorithms. Through its transferable nature, the new course plan serves as a valuable resource for educators seeking to enhance their online/hybrid engineering courses and promote effective learning in the field of computer programming.

All the course plans in different languages are available to download below.