Types and time of interaction for teaching introductory programming using instruction method of extreme apprenticeship

• Main Authors: Srinivasan Lakshminarayanan, N. J. Rao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2021-01-01
• Series: Cogent Education
• Subjects: cs1; introductory programming course; cognitive apprenticeship; extreme apprenticeship; metacognitive; affective
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2021.1969880

CS1 courses are designed in Indian Institutions as a lecture course of three to four credits and one credit lab course. The issues related to curriculum design, instruction design, and students’ learning manifest themselves as issues in the lab programs. This situation presents the lab instructor with an opportunity to understand and address the difficulty the student is facing. The difficulty could be understanding a concept, applying a concept, the amount of effort invested, and the time required by the individual to solve the problem. The student might need help to address various emotional aspects related to peer pressure, need for completion, need for acceptance by the instructor, and achievement goals. The student’s difficulty is usually handled by a) allowing the student to correct programs by looking at the working programs of their peers or class notes, b) The teacher or peer fixes the program. The problem gets solved, and the student moves on to the next program, but the student’s underlying difficulty may not have been resolved. Since addressing the underlying difficulty takes more time, we offered the students a voluntary supplementary CS0 course using the Extreme Apprenticeship instruction method. In this study, we estimated that students need between four to fifteen hours of one-on-one synchronous interaction time with the instructor based on prior exposure. Thematic Analysis of interactions identified fifteen themes in metacognitive domain interactions, eight themes in cognitive domain interactions, and six themes in affective domain interactions.