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Teaching Community College Students Programming without Programming using Arduino SparkFun Inventors’ Kit

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• Volume 11, Issue 1, Jan. 2024

Year:

2024

Type of Publication:

Article

Keywords:

REU, Community Colleges, STEM, AI, Smart Engineering, Pathways, Transfer, Programming, SpakFun Kit

Authors:

• Zeid, Abe
• Duggan, Claire

Journal:

IJEIR

Volume:

11

Number:

1

Pages:

12-21

Month:

January

ISSN:

2349-5219

BibTex:

@article{2024, author = "Abe Zeid and Claire Duggan", abstract = "This paper presents the concept of teaching programming to non-computer-science students without programming, a concept referred to as visual or conversational programming. Virtual programming is different from programming generated by Generative AI Chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google Bard that can write code in any language. However, users must have programming knowledge to use and modify the generated code. The virtual programming uses the concept of building block to assemble some logic while coding is generated in the background. While the concept in itself is not new, implementing it using the Arduino SparkFrun Innovator’s Kit is truly innovative. The use of the kit has been part of grant activities for REU-PATHWAYS participants, from local community colleges (CCs), of a funded REU site by a grant form NSF. The goal of the activity is to expose CC students to 4-year college environment via a fun hands-on activity in the hope to prepare them to consider transferring to higher education as a pathway to improve their future education and employment. The method we used is to have CC students work on programming assignments weekly using the SparkFunk kit lessons and get them to build circuits for hands-on experience. CC students spend 10 weeks during summer in the REU program. They present a project at the end of the program. The project gets them to design and build their own circuits. The results of this activities have been positive. It improved students skills in programming and engineering design. The students feedback is positive, confirming the observation that visual/conversational programming is a viable concept to teach programming without programming.", issn = "23495219", journal = "IJEIR", keywords = "REU, Community Colleges, STEM, AI, Smart Engineering, Pathways, Transfer, Programming, SpakFun Kit", month = "January", number = "1", pages = "12-21", title = "{T}eaching {C}ommunity {C}ollege {S}tudents {P}rogramming without {P}rogramming using {A}rduino {S}park{F}un {I}nventors’ {K}", volume = "11", year = "2024", }

Abstract:

This paper presents the concept of teaching programming to non-computer-science students without programming, a concept referred to as visual or conversational programming. Virtual programming is different from programming generated by Generative AI Chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google Bard that can write code in any language. However, users must have programming knowledge to use and modify the generated code. The virtual programming uses the concept of building block to assemble some logic while coding is generated in the background. While the concept in itself is not new, implementing it using the Arduino SparkFrun Innovator’s Kit is truly innovative. The use of the kit has been part of grant activities for REU-PATHWAYS participants, from local community colleges (CCs), of a funded REU site by a grant form NSF. The goal of the activity is to expose CC students to 4-year college environment via a fun hands-on activity in the hope to prepare them to consider transferring to higher education as a pathway to improve their future education and employment. The method we used is to have CC students work on programming assignments weekly using the SparkFunk kit lessons and get them to build circuits for hands-on experience. CC students spend 10 weeks during summer in the REU program. They present a project at the end of the program. The project gets them to design and build their own circuits. The results of this activities have been positive. It improved students skills in programming and engineering design. The students feedback is positive, confirming the observation that visual/conversational programming is a viable concept to teach programming without programming.

Full text: IJIRES_2024_FINAL.pdf Online version [Bibtex]