Structure and Constraints in Interactive Exploratory Algorithm Learning

摘要

Traditionally an algorithm is taught by presenting and explaining the problem, the algorithm pseudocode and an algorithm animation or a sequence of static snapshots. My aim is to foster creativity, motivation and high level programming concepts by providing the student an alternative route to algorithm understanding: exploratory learning. The algorithm is structured into several functions and this structure is presented to the student. The student is encouraged to device a pseudocode description himself. An instance of the problem is presented on the level of each algorithm function. A graphical simulation of the data structures and some of the algorithm functions are provided. It is the student's task to find out a correct sequence of function calls that will solve the problem instance. The instructor can control the difficulty of the task by providing algorithm constraints. Each new constraint will shrink the solution space and thus ease the task.