Avaliação de uma abordagem personalizada de ensino no contexto de programação introdutória.

Abstract

Students in introductory programming classes learn at different paces. Nevertheless, many professors remain adopting approaches in which all are treated equally. Unfortunately, students who fail to keep pace with the course end up learning superficially, because they study new concepts before mastering the previous ones. Professors from the Federal University of Campina Grande decided to improve the teaching method used in their CS1 course using elements of Mastery Learning - a philosophy of learning based on the principle that everyone can learn under adequate conditions. They changed the teaching approach hoping to allow every student to learn at his/her own pace and master the content before studying the next one. The new method was implemented in the course and well accepted among instructors. However, there was no scientific evidence to support its benefits in the teaching-learning process This work is an opportunity to investigate the effects of Mastery Learning in students and find out the positive and negative aspects of its implementation. We found that students were more focused on their difficulties and had less doubts. In addition, as the method has evolved in the course, there was considerable improvement in student performance. This work gathered evidence that the use of the Mastery Learning in CS1 improved various aspects of the teaching-learning process and brought together lessons learned by instructors throughoutthechange ofmethod.