[Crosstalk] TIME CLARIFICATION Talk announcement: Issues in Learning the Language of LSC and Scenario-Based Programming

[John Champaign]

Tuesday, April 29 at *1 pm* in 26-214

Issues in Learning the Language of LSC and Scenario-Based Programming

Giora Alexandron

Dept. of Science Teaching

The Weizmann Institute of Science

This presentation concerns computer science education (CSE) and the
psychology of programming. The focus is on how people learn the
visual, scenario-based language of live sequence charts (LSC)1. One
issue in this context is the effect of LSC and scenario-based
programming on programmers’ problem-solving processes. The main
motivation behind this question is to better understand the effect of
the programming language on programmers’ behavior, and to identify
characteristics that make particular languages more suited,
cognitive-wise, for specific tasks. Another issue is the effect of
previous programming experience on the learning of LSC. This can
enhance our understanding of the effect of programming experience on
the learning of new programming languages in general [1].

I will begin with a brief review of some of the main factors that make
programming difficult to learn, then delve into the specific issue of
the effect of the programming language on programmers’ behavior,
present some of my findings on this topic, and suggest a cognitive
model that explains them. These studies are part of my PhD research,
supervised by Prof. David Harel from the Faculty of Mathematics and
Computer Science, and Dr. Michal Armoni from the Dept. of Science
Teaching, both at The Weizmann Institute of Science. The research was
supported by a fellowship grant from the Azrieli Foundation.

1 W. Damm and D. Harel, "LSCs: Breathing Life into Message Sequence
Charts", Formal Methods in System Design 19:1 (2001)