Recommending exercises in Scratch: an integrated approach for enhancing the learning of computer programming

Abstract

In this chapter we focused on how to improve the learning of computer programming in college students. From the reported success, we relied on Scratch, a visual programming language for enhancing the informal learning. Despite the progress achieved in the past, we have observe some issues regarding the use of Scratch by college students. First, there is a gap between the employed learning approaches since professors are constrained to classroom activities. Second, certain students feel unmotivated because they are confronted with programming exercises that do not fulfill their individual expectations. So, in order to solve this issue we propose an integrated approach consisting of a simpleWeb Application that includes Scratch as a project editor along with an Recommender System for exercises. The preliminary results demonstrate the positive impact of our proposal.