Problem-Solving Strategies - Guide to Teaching Computer Science: An Activity-Based Approach - page 85

1980 ); debugging is a means that enables us to come closer to the target. Awareness
of this role of debugging can improve one's understanding of learning processes.
Like Papert ( 1980 ), we believe that learning to debug can change students ' nega-
tive attitudes toward errors and increase their awareness with respect to the im-
portance of mistakes in learning processes. This view is even strengthened among
students who are accustomed to being evaluated by automated accepted grading
systems. There, mistakes (or errors) lower their grade and the opportunity to learn
from the mistakes and to improve the entire problem-solving process is neglected.
Some researchers expanded this view point and suggest a teaching-learning process
which is based on “learning from mistakes”. Some of them are based on class dis-
cussions (Ginat 2003 , 2008 ; Ginat and Shmalo 2013 ), and some integrate a com-
puterized tool to scaffold the process of acquiring self-debugging skills (Seta et al.
2006 ; Raman et al. 2012 ). The main issue is that when errors become a legitimate
topic for discussion, it becomes easier to address the connections between learning
processes and misconceptions. That leads to our recommendation to explicitly teach
debugging, since learning about debugging might improve students' understanding
of their own thinking processes .
The inclusion of debugging in the MTCS course can deliver important messages
to the prospective computer science teachers. Specifically, it has several advantages
listed below:
• Awareness to novice programmers' debugging strategies : Future computer sci-
ence teachers must be aware of the fact that debugging strategies are important
from the early steps of novice programmers' work and that, accordingly, com-
puter science teachers should deal with debugging-related issues in their daily
work. Carver and McCoy ( 1988 ) indicate that “children typically respond in-
effectively to debugging situations. Many of them panic and call the teacher
insistently, making no attempts to correct the situation until help arrives. Others
quickly erase their code and begin again without ever understanding their error.”
Consequently, computer science teachers should be aware of different ways by
which to approach such debugging-related situations.
• Computer science teachers must be good debuggers: Computer science teachers
must acquire good debugging skills in order to be able to understand students'
buggy programs. Good debugging skills enable them to guide learners in their
debugging processes. Although student-teachers are familiar with debugging
strategies from their own computer science studies, the attention given to debug-
ging in the MTCS course might further improve their debugging skills.
• Recognition of the opportunity to lead discussions on mistakes : Through the dis-
cussion on debugging, computer science teachers should realize the opportunity
they have to change negative attitudes towards errors they (or their future pupils)
may have. Discussions on mistakes may deepen the understanding of the taught
concepts, and may include both content concepts (such as, loops or arrays), and
soft skills content (such as, problem-solving strategies).
• Automatic testing: In current development processes in both academia and in-
dustry, it is more and more common to base the development process on auto-