Beyond objects-first: a project-driven CS2 course

ABSTRACT

After we adopted an objects-first approach in CS1, we had to redesign our CS2 and data structures courses. This paper reports on our efforts to develop a project-driven CS2 course that expands on the object-oriented methodology introduced in the CS1 course. We omitted some traditional data structures material and focused on using data structures in meaningful, large-scale projects that guided the course content. This helped students understand why these structures are important before concentrating on implementation in the subsequent data structures and algorithms course. This paper focuses on the pedagogical aspects of our CS2 course; a companion paper [4] discusses object-oriented methodology in more detail.

REFERENCES

• 1: David J. Barnes, Michael Kolling, Objects First with Java: A Practical Introduction Using BlueJ 2nd ed., Prentice Hall, 2004
• 2: Elbert Hubbard, A Message to Garcia, Peter Pauper Press, 1982. Retrieved September 9, 2005, from http://www.birdsnest.com/garcia.htm
• 3: Cay S. Horstmann, Big Java: Programming and Practice, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 2001
• 4: E. Frank Barry , Christopher C. Ellsworth , Barry L. Kurtz , James T. Wilkes, Teaching OO methodology in a project-driven CS2 course, Companion to the 20th annual ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming, systems, languages, and applications, October 16-20, 2005, San Diego, CA, USA [doi>10.1145/1094855.1094970]
• 5: Tia Newhall , Lisa Meeden, A comprehensive project for CS2: combining key data structures and algorithms into an integrated web browser and search engine, Proceedings of the 33rd SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, February 27-March 03, 2002, Cincinnati, Kentucky
• 6: Joseph A. Turner , Joseph L. Zachary, Using course-long programming projects in CS2, The proceedings of the thirtieth SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, p.43-47, March 24-28, 1999, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
• 7: Samuel A. Rebelsky , Clif Flynt, Real-world program design in CS2: the roles of a large-scale, multi-group class project, Proceedings of the thirty-first SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, p.192-196, March 07-12, 2000, Austin, Texas, United States
• 8: Ahmad Ghafarian, Incorporating a semester-long project into the CS 2 course, Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, v.17 n.2, p.183-190, December 2001

INDEX TERMS

General Terms:
Algorithms, Experimentation

Keywords:
CS2, objects-first, project-driven