Active Visual Scaffolding by Charles Kelemen and Eugene Turk
The Problem
-
Understanding algorithms and debugging code
- Students try to correct bugs without understanding what is
wrong with their erroneous code
- Reading code and viewing algorithm animations are helpful
- neither is a substitute for
- writing and debugging code to implement an algorithm or
- proving theorems about algorithms
- Watching a visualization is a fairly passive process.
- Most visualization systems do not allow students to experiment
with changing the underlying code
in order to see an updated visualization
Interactive debuggers allow
students to follow the execution of their own code but often at too
low a level of abstraction with too much detail. We want to develop
an infrastructure and path into Java graphics that will encourage
students to visually follow the execution of their code at a level of
abstraction somewhere between the typical algorithm animation and
typical interactive debugger. It will require a more active role on
the part of the student than either an interactive debugger or an
algorithm animation.
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