Programming Basics for Beginners. Experience of the Institute of Informatics at Tallinn University of Technology

Abstract

The present paper demonstrates the teaching approach in programming basics course for novices: schoolchildren of different ages and schoolteachers. This programming course was developed at the Institute of Informatics at Tallinn University of Technology in Tallinn, Estonia and it based on many years experience in teaching programming for non-IT first year students. The main aim of the chosen teaching approach in the course is to raise the motivation and keep the learners’ interest in programming field on the high level. The idea of developed teaching technique is the implementation of the visual programming before a serious textual coding. Furthermore, authors suggest readers some ways and methods to overcome learners’ difficulties in the first stage in a textual coding.