Programming languages and dynamic instructional tools: Addressing students’ knowledge base

The chapter presents an instructional computer environment to be used in introductory Pascal programming classes. Traditional programming courses do not foster the kind of knowledge structures that are the trademark of expert programmers. These knowledge structures or programming templates provide programmers with a ready-to-use library of routines from which they draw when writing a new program. Developed as a hypertext tool, TAP (Template Assisted Programming) is an instructional environment to teach programming that emphasizes the development and use of such a library of routines by presenting students with a multiple representation of programming knowledge. In TAP students can (a) switc…