Enhancing Programming Lectures Using Interactive Web-Based Lecture Slides.

Abstract

Programming is often seen as a difficult subject to teach and keep students engaged and motivated about. Also programming results are frequently found to be lower than for other subjects (Jenkins 2002; Robins et al. 2003; Bennedsen and Caspersen 2007). Therefore, the challenge is to find a way of improving programming education to address these problems. This paper considers the use of innovative pedagogy approaches to do this due to their ability to enhance learning experiences. An innovative pedagogy case study is presented that was designed to test whether interactive web-based lecture slides can enhance programming lectures to make them more engaging and enjoyable and make programming easier to understand. The lecture was an introduction to the jQuery JavaScript library/framework for first year undergraduates. Results were overall positive and show value for approaches like this and that they can enhance lectures to make them more engaging and enjoyable and can be used to make programming easier to understand.