A BRIDGING, SCAFFOLDING OR SKELETAL INITIAL OOSD LEARNING OBJECT

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A BRIDGING, SCAFFOLDING OR SKELETAL INITIAL OOSD
LEARNING OBJECT

• Fintan Culwin, Phil Campbell and Kemi Adeboye.
• Fintan_at_lsbu.ac.uk campbep_at_lsbu.ac.uk
  adeboyk_at_lsbu.ac.uk
• London South Bank University.

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Overview

• Why Learning Objects?
• Design Considerations.
• Implementation.
• Evaluation.
• Result.
• Conclusion.

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Why Learning Objects?

• Complexity of Concepts
• Disaffection/Non-Engagement with subject
• Retention
• Need to address the above

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Design Considerations (1)

• Problem of coding Bane of a SD students life.
• To Bridge or to Scaffold- That is the question
• The tool should offer a
• Bridge to give students a safe route over
  initial difficulty of creating classes, and
  provide a
• Scaffold to allow students to complete tasks
  that would otherwise be almost impossible for
  them at this initial stage without assistance,
  but not be a
• Skeleton without which the student is unable to
  stand on their own two feet.

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Design Considerations (2)

• Tool should also
• Be expressive.
• Promote good practise.
• Have suitable granularity.
• Have good usability.

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Implementation

• The Java Class Factory
• Form.
• Wizard.

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The Java Class Factory
Note the number of decisions that have to be made
in order to complete the form. These descisions
would have to be made whilst deciding which form
of words to use and where to put the semi-colons
as well as remembering that this is not the same
as This, and some methods need to include void
but some need to include int, apart from those
that do not have either because they are
constructors and then although the UML goes
thingy int the Java goes int thingy (or is it the
other way around?) and sometimes you use but
at other times it is () and main() is static as
well as having s in it . . . . . . .
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The Java Class Factory

• Main interactive part used to define the class.
• The form bridges many of the problems faced by
  students new to SD (e.g Java syntax, rules, etc.)
• It offers the opportunity to focus on the
  essential decisions. At least 12 of these were
  identified in this case. (e.g. Class/package
  name, atrributes, methods, visibility, primitive
  types etc.)

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The Java Class Factory Outputs
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The Java Class Wizard
Managing the complexityinherent in the JCF
interface in this waymake it less intimidating?
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Evaluation (1)

• Formal evaluation of two versions of the
  interface conducted in a structured support
  environment, under exam conditions, with a
  volunteer cohort of students.
• Investigation conducted during assessment gap
  period of semesters 1 and 2 of the 2003/4
  session.
• Volunteer group consisted of 100 students all
  first year and had just completed their first SD
  unit.
• Group split into 3 for Form (factory), Wizard and
  Template. (The template was declarations and
  partial demonstration without the factory/wizard
  interface.)

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Evaluation (2)

• Duration approx. 2 hour session
• Pre-activity sheets 15mins.
• Questionnaire, 6questions, rate scale 1-5,
• I like programming, I can build a simple Java
  class, demonstration, I can explain what an
  object is, I can explain what a constructor does,
  am looking forward to learning more about SD,
• Spot deliberate errors in a simple class with 2
  attributes
• Main Activity
• Paper description of a pair of classes.
• Work on versions of interface to build classes
• collected after 1 hour.
• Post activity sheet 15mins.
• Same pre-activity questionnaire but different
  class given to spot deliberate errors.
• De-briefing 20mins.

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Predictions

• Predictions
• No effect upon competence?
• Negative attitude effect from template.
• Postive attitude effect from factory wizard
  (Hawthorne?).
• Larger effect for the wizard.

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Results

• Measurable differences in attitude and competence
  between both versions were ambiguous.
• Results were ambiguous as students believed that
  they were attending an examination revision
  session.
• Some students in the template group were so lost
  and distressed that assistance had to be given.
• Group expressed opinion that provision of tool
  during the course of the semester while studying
  the unit, would have been highly beneficial.
• Similar opinion expressed by second and final
  year students.

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Conclusion Further Work

• From students expressed attitude they believe
  that the Learning object would be useful.
• Integrate the Learning Object into this years
  presentation.
• Continue to develop expressive SD LO (LoopLO
  Poople).
• URL FOR JCF http//myweb.lsbu.ac.uk/fintan/jcf/j
  cfw.html

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Loop Learning Object

• These are a collection of simple learning objects
  that are first intended to assist with the
  learning of C style for loop constructs. Secondly
  they are inteneted to demonstrate the concept of
  'situatedness' (sic) (This work is still ongoing
  and only the simplest configuration of the object
  is shown.)

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LoopLO Poople LO
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http//myweb.lsbu.ac.uk/fintan/jcf/jcfw.html
URL FOR JCF

• ANY QUESTIONS?