Using Visualizations to Learn Algorithms: Should Students Construct Their Own, or View an Expert's?
نویسندگان
چکیده
Algorithm visualization software graphically illustrates how computer algorithms work. Past experiments designed to substantiate the software’s pedagogical value have yielded mixed results. A review of these studies suggests that the more actively involved learners are in the visualization process, the better they perform. Given this trend, and inspired by ethnographic fieldwork we conducted in an undergraduate algorithms course, we hypothesize that students who use simple art supplies to construct their own visualizations will learn an algorithm better than students who interact with computer-based visualizations constructed by an expert. We conducted an experiment to test this hypothesis, and found no significant differences between the two pedagogical approaches. Thus, students who use “low tech” materials to construct their own visualizations may learn algorithms just as well as students who study conventional “high tech” visualizations constructed by an expert. This result motivates a markedly different kind of algorithm visualization software: one that enables learners to construct their own “low tech” visualizations.
منابع مشابه
SALSA and ALVIS: A Language and System for Constructing and Presenting Low Fidelity Algorithm Visualizations
Computer science educators have traditionally used algorithm visualization (AV) software to create graphical representations of algorithms that are later used as visual aids in lectures, or as the basis for interactive labs. Based on ethnographic field studies we have conducted in an undergraduate algorithms course, we advocate an alternative teaching approach in which students use simple art s...
متن کاملA Language and System for Constructing and Presenting Low Fidelity Algorithm Visualizations
Computer science educators have traditionally used algorithm visualization (AV) software to create graphical representations of algorithms that are later used as visual aids in lectures, or as the basis for interactive labs. Typically, such visualizations are high fidelity in the sense that (a) they depict the target algorithm for arbitrary input, and (b) they tend to have the polished look of ...
متن کاملLow-Fidelity Algorithm Visualization
Computer science educators have traditionally used algorithm visualization (AV) software to create graphical representations of algorithms for use as visual aids in lectures, or as the basis for interactive labs. Typically, such visualizations are high fidelity in the sense that (a) they depict the target algorithm for arbitrary input, and (b) they tend to have the polished look of textbook fig...
متن کاملMoving from Visualization for Teaching to Visualization for Learning
Good teachers choose from a rich set of visualizations to clearly communicate ideas and concepts to students. Good educational visualizations are designed in a way that supports the teaching process: they help to tell a story that leads to understanding. In this paper, we argue that teachers should not produce such visualizations. Instead, they should ask their students to do that. We argue tha...
متن کاملSurvey relationship between clinical faculties' manner or teaching behaviors and nursing students' anxiety from students' view point at Guilan University of Medical Sciences, 2007
Introduction: Students' perceptions of how clinical faculty behave and relate to them (both ‎positively and negatively) were noted to influence their anxiety levels and consequently their ‎ability to learn and perform safely and effectively.‎ Objective: This study aims to determine the relationship between clinical faculties' manner of ‎teaching behaviors and nursing st...
متن کامل