Exploration and Practice on Teaching Java as Introductory Language for Non-CSE Major Students

Programming foundation is an important course for non-CSE major students. Deciding which programming language to teach to novice programmers, and how to teach it, is a common topic within universities. In Hangzhou Dianzi University, Java is taught as the introductory language at the faculty of electronic commerce and the faculty of information management. We lay a strong emphasis on practical training and build hierarchical training model. Web-based teaching platform is developed as an effectively supplementary means for traditional classroom teaching. Our efforts are found to increase student satisfaction, increase success rates, and lower dropout frequencies. This paper describes our experiences in teaching Java programming, with particular regard to course organization, teaching methods and strategies.