As second semester begins, I noticed that students in Computer Programming are becoming increasingly disinterested in the content of the Computer Science classes. Despite our discussions of the utility and benefit of Computer Science education and the many warm-ups and do nows on GrokIt about the current and future job opportunities of computer science graduates, interest in the subject continues to wan.
In an attempt to develop something more visually oriented to better meet the needs of learners and their diverse learning styles, I have decided on injecting a dose of "increased visualization" into the Computer Science curriculum hopefully, to stimulate and increase interest. It should be no surprise that our society is becoming increasingly dependent on visuals to convey information. The use of computer tools like Photoshop and Illustrator make it easy to create graphics and the availability of the internet as a publishing platform allows anyone to develop a forum including via social media, often by the overuse of photos to tell life stories. As a result, our students are developing a dependency on visuals and illustration as a means to understand complex or at least complicated concepts and theories. And I have read some articles that suggest that increasing the use of visuals, that is the generation of images for communicating ideas and concepts, in the classroom results in a greater degree of learning.
Up to now we have been studying the fundamental concepts of programming including objects, variables, condition statements and loops, each an essential component to “coding.” And all put together, these are the means to create a program--albeit a text based one. Instead of continuing on with the curriculum by studying file handling and string processing, I will jump ahead a bit deviating from the topic order to look at the graphics processing component of Small Basic which may afford the opportunity to heighten student abilities to communicate data and understand concepts. Perhaps students may better understand computing concepts that they can view visually rather than verbally. And certainly, more practice using multiple literacies to better comprehend and express complex ideas might be beneficial.
I designed a chapter lesson to touch on and to strengthen the competencies of both visual literacy which is the ability to interpret and visually decode images and visual thinking, which is the ability to encode or express concepts using visuals. Rather than just presenting an overview of the pertinent computer programming concepts then reading through complicated examples, pointing out the use and application of specific objects, methods and arguments, much like an English teacher would read a paragraph and attempt to fill in gaps in understanding, literary subtleties, and cultural references, I presented each new coding concept as an image first, then specified the particular programming used to create the graphic, linking a line or lines of computer code to the corresponding visual effect it created. For example, I showed the class a graphics window, the object used to display pictures, illustrations or graphics in Small Basic specifying the properties and characteristics of the window, the size, height, width, background color and title. After detailing the design, I questioned how to program it, then displayed the code, which we then we examined line by line. After a series of short labs, elaborating the concept, we looked at the next topic, drawing shapes including lines, rectangles, and circles in much the same way. After more labs, concepts, and review, students seem interested enough to be now working independently to incorporate what they learned into a final programming assignment.
I should be able to ascertain the effectiveness of the technique after all labs and assessments are complete. If it works, we’ll continue with the next topic: Turtle Graphics.
