Ten Years of “Object First”

Abstract

Abstract Teaching programming to newbies is still an ongoing challenge. Strongly worded, either students can program when they enter the university or they never learn it. The challenge is to address as many students as possible in such a way that they get an understanding of programming and become able to complete the course successfully. In contrary to traditional structured programming the Objects-First approach starts with classes and objects and introduces data types and programming statements whenever they are necessary to define the structure or behaviour of objects. The author has used the Objects-First approach for more than ten years. Almost the same content has been used all over the years but the way of teaching has changed. For the last two years the author has used elements of just-in-time teaching. The paper reviews the different teaching approaches based on the exams results. The author argues that teaching style has a minor influence. The social atmosphere among the students is a more crucial factor.