Collaborative Learning Environment to Improve Novice Programmers with Convincing Opinions in Computer Room

Abstract

The insufficiency of programming teaching staff in many universities of developing countries causes programming training in computer rooms to be ineffective. Only one teacher supervises many students in programming practice. Since tens of novice students need guidance because of their stuck in difficulties, the teacher is impossible to supervise all of them in a timely fashion. To solve the problem, we propose a collaborative learning model using a voting mechanism. Student are divided into small groups. They practice programming individually. A COOP point is voted to reward group members who have offered convincing opinions to others. COOP points are used as a measure of a student contribution to group learning. A collaborative learning environment based on the model, Col-E, has been developed and applied for 50 students learning C programming language in Danang Educational University in Vietnam. The result shows that Col-E works well to improve programming ability and motivation of students.