Modules

The teaching modules contain individual and group activities to help teach basic concepts of computer science and computational thinking using the Story Programming approach.

The modules also include some quizzes with sample solutions, which are available to instructors on request. Please contact erwig@oregonstate.edu if you are an instructor who plans to use the teaching material in one of your classes. Let us know for what class/course you plan to use the material, and we will gladly provide you with access to the complete material.

Most of the activities were used in several sections of the class CS 160 at OSU in Fall 2017 and Fall 2018, and they were originally created by the instructors of those classes.

Note: Many descriptions have been modified to remove dependencies on the particular course idiosyncrasies. Moreover, we had to eliminate many exercises and activities that were not closely related to the Story Programming paradigm. That is the main reason for why the module collection is rather incomplete and many modules have only few activities. As a result, several modules don’t contain any publicly available content.

Algorithms

This teaching module explains what an algorithm is and how algorithms are employed for systematic problem solving.

Representation

This teaching module explains what a representation is and how representations are employed by algorithms for problem solving.

Searching & Sorting

This teaching module explains what a representation is and how representations are employed by algorithms for problem solving.

Languages

This teaching module explains what a language is and how the representation of algorithms in a language facilitates the sharing and execution of algorithms.

Control Structures

This teaching module explains three basic control structures that are used in algorithms for assembling complex instructions out of individual steps.

Decomposition & Recursion

This teaching module explains the importance of decomposition and the idea of recursion.

Types & Abstraction

This teaching module explains types and the more general notion of abstraction.

Limits of Computation

This teaching module shows that computation cannot solve all problems.