Integrated View at the MTCS Course Organization: The Case of Recursion - Guide to Teaching Computer Science: An Activity-Based Approach - page 231

Activity 98: Construction of a Written Test on Recursion
Activity 81 in Sect. 10.2 focuses on test construction. Within the context of
the current chapter, it is possible to follow all its stages with respect to recur-
sion as the topic of the test. If time does not permit to facilitate all the stages, it
is recommended to focus on the test construction stage and to ask the students
to construct questions about recursion of different types and difficulty levels
(see Chap. 9).

12.8 Additional Activities

In this section, we present additional activities related to learning and teaching re-
cursion to be facilitated in the MTCS course. The purpose of this list is to illustrate
again that, indeed, recursion can be the focus of almost any topic discussed in the
MTCS course. For the readership convenience, the activities are organized by the
order of the chapters in this guide to which they are related.

Activity 99: History of Recursive Functions
Section 3.3 focuses on the history of computer science. An optional activ-
ity about recursion in the historical context would ask students to read (e.g.,
using Internet resources) about the history of recursive functions (such as,
G￶del's computable functions and Turing's machine) and to present their
findings in the course.

Activity 100: Comparison of Recursive Algorithms in Different Paradigms
Section 3.6 focuses on programming paradigms. In the context of recursion,
an optional activity would ask students to compare the same recursive algo-
rithm in different paradigms (e.g., logic, functional, procedural) or compare
iterative and recursive solutions to the same problem.

Activity 101: Recursive Patterns
Section 5.4.3 relates to algorithmic patterns. An optional activity for recursion
would analyze recursive patterns for list processing, such as map, filter, and
reduce (see Table 12.7 ).