Teaching Planning - Guide to Teaching Computer Science: An Activity-Based Approach - page 205

11.3.1 Planning the Teaching of a Study Unit about

One-Dimensional Array

The teaching planning of the study unit about one-dimensional array is carried out
in what follows according to the stages presented in Sect. 11.2.2.

1. List the concepts included in the said topic: This list contains different aspects
and different scopes of one-dimensional array. The following list, formulated
informally on purpose, reflects this approach:
− The need for the array structure.
− When is it necessary to use arrays and when it is not?
− The structure of a basic array: an ordered collection of cells from the same
type with one shared name and a unique index for each element.
− The distinction between an array-cell index and an array-cell content.
− Understanding that each array-cell functions as any other variable.
− Array boundaries.
− Basic array scans (for insert, retrieve values, etc.).
− The array representation in a specific programming language: array declara-
tion, syntax, memory structure (e.g., in Java, an array is an object and the
array length is an attribute of the object).
− Array patterns (patterns used for “classic” algorithms such as find the max
value, print all items/elements, etc.).
− Different tasks on arrays that implement different algorithmic approaches
with different logic complexity (e.g., find the max value, average value, num-
ber of elements that are larger than the average, frequency of a given value,
the most frequent value, changing values according to different rules, find
sub-sequences, and more).
− Subtasks using arrays (parameter passage and arrays as a returned value of a
function).
− Tasks that involve array building (building a sub-array of a given array accord-
ing to a specified condition, array union, array intersection, array subtraction).
− Array of counters.
− Array of accumulators.
− Array of objects (in the relevant programming languages).
− Search in arrays (linear or binary).
− Sorting arrays (insertion sort, selection sort, bubble sort, recursive sort like
quick-sort).
− Merging of arrays (e.g., sort-merge).
− The efficiency of different array algorithms.
2. Review the experience of the computer science education community and its
research literature about students' difficulties and misconceptions that may
occur while learning of the said topic : We present two lists related to learn-
ers' difficulties and misconceptions while learning arrays: the first one presents
experiences of practitioners in computer science education using a casual ter-