Teaching Strategy for Algorithmic Problem-Solving

Many instructors claim that the teaching process of programming education improves problem-solving abilities. However, if the instructor focuses on teaching programming grammar (syntax) or on memorizing well-known algorithms’ process maps, such as sorting and searching, students’ cognitive loads could increase and this does not enhance their problem-solving abilities. Therefore, this paper proposes a sample curriculum and problems that students should solve in each theme to learn programming skills and algorithmic problem solving. The programming course was based on methods, such as storytelling, simulations, and games to motivate students. We also present a teaching strategy to design a programming teaching course. The teaching strategy process is founded on basic steps of algorithm creation. Then, the Class-Responsibility-Collaborator card model was used as a hands-on activity for program design. We used an educational programming environment in our experiment in which the students can easily implement their programs. Our experiment ran for elementary school students for 12 hours. We demonstrate the examples of students’ problem-solving activities that were discovered and solved by teacher or learner during the programming scenario. Learners’ interests, satisfactions, and achievements in learning programming with the teaching strategy had considerable positive results. Key-Words: Algorithmic problem-solving, Teaching strategy, Squeak etoys, Elementary school students, Novice