Orienting learners and teachers in introductory programming classes: the ABC Framework

This practice paper presents a framework that has been successfully used in introductory programming classes to orient students to the nature and purpose of programming, and teachers to the multiple aspects of programming education. Orientation was one of the five key difficulties for novices identified in du Boulay’s landmark 1986 paper, and it can still be an issue for both incoming students and new computing teachers. The framework, known as ABC, presents computing as a modelling activity, with: a multitude of possible problem/task domains, or Application Areas (A); sets of Building Blocks (B), such as programming languages and other computing systems, which can be used for model building; and a set of skills enabling the Creative Construction (C) of a solution, or model, of a problem/task in a particular application area, using a particular building block system. How the ABC Framework can be used to help orient students and structure learning and teaching is presented, as well as insights derived from students and teachers of an introductory programming course where this approach is used.