Lab-Based Teaching - Guide to Teaching Computer Science: An Activity-Based Approach - page 150

illustrates a different and non-conventional use of the computer lab (see also
Sect. 5.5 about debugging processes).
• Stage A: Debugging a song melody, work in pairs with the computer
The students are given a familiar song, a nonworking computer program of
its melody, the program listing, and the melody. They are asked to debug
the program and to document their actions and the strategies they used dur-
ing the debugging process.
While working on these tasks, the students debug the program, trying to
make it a working program, that is, a program that plays the correct mel-
ody. Usually, they start with syntax errors, which are easier to detect and
obtain a program devoid of syntax errors. At this stage, they realize that the
program does not play properly the correct melody and start debugging the
semantic (or logical) errors of the program.
• Stage B: Class discussion
The discussion that follows the activity can be viewed on two levels.
On the first level, content is addressed. The students present the errors
they found in the program and describe their debugging strategies. This
discussion offers an opportunity to address programming errors and their
classification in different ways (e.g., syntax errors are the easiest to find vs
logical errors are the most difficult to locate). When learners are asked to
generalize their own strategies, the discussion focuses on general debug-
ging strategies.
The second level of the discussion focuses on topics such as the fol-
lowing ones: the importance of debugging in computer science and in
computer science education, the teaching of debugging, and the place of
debugging in the computer science curriculum. In this context, debugging
can be addressed from the perspective of soft ideas (see Sect. 3.7).
• Stage C: Analyze one of the common debugging tools, homework
The students are asked to choose one of the common debugging tools
(such as NetBeans) and to comment on their choice from a pedagogical
point of view. Another optional task would be to ask students prepare a lab
worksheet for pupils where pupils will get familiar with one of the com-
mon debugging tools.
• Stage D: Prepare a debugging activity or read articles that address debug-
ging, homework
The students are asked to prepare another debugging activity or to read
articles that address debugging (e.g., Spohrer and Soloway 1986 ; Perkins
and Martin 1986 ) and to comment on them from a pedagogical point of
view.
Activity 66: Software Visualization and Animation
There are computational environments, designed especially for pedagogical