A Practice for Providing Additional Support in CS1

Abstract

This paper reports on a practice used for providing additional support to beginner programmers. This practice emphasizes low social barriers to learning, differentiated instruction, and revision. Altogether we try to avoid defensiveness or stigmatization among those who face difficulties. Student feedback indicates their acceptance of this approach while teaching assistants report that helping students in need of additional support improve their teaching skills. Further, we have observed indications of improved student performance. We describe the practice and suggest a particular educational constructionism, i.e., how students construct their social identities within a particular school setting, as an explanation for our positive experiences. As a conclusion, we stress the importance of support implemented through differentiated instruction and informed by constructionism as a CS1 research topic.