Towards a pattern language for interactive coding tutorials

Abstract

Online, text-based coding tutorials are popular among programming learners. Though they are relatively easy to create, it's challenging to ensure their pedagogical effectiveness. Computer Science Education researchers have advocated for interactive tutorials, because they provide learners with opportunities to practice and receive feedback while completing a tutorial. Nonetheless, little guidance exists on how to best leverage interactivity in tutorials. We set out to develop a pattern language for interactive tutorials to fill this gap. Through a human-centered design process, we created and evolved three instructional patterns and their supporting interaction components in a tutorial on asynchronous programming. We describe the preliminary results of our work towards this pattern language in this paper.