Engaging the student: Programming solving real-life problems

Having taught software development at tertiary level for the past 20 years, the author has found that one of the key concepts that students struggle with is to progress from programming basic constructs like FOR-loops to solving real engineering problems. Once students have mastered the basic programming constructs they fall into the rut of the cookiecutters due to the lack of “seeing” the bridge between theory and practice or in this case construct and application. At Tshwane University of Technology the focus is on vocational training and solving this dilemma is key to the University´s mission. Having exhausted efforts in promoting the philosophy of Logical Thinking, Analyzing Sequential Actions and Visual Programming Environments a new initiative in sustainable engineering training is making new inroads to addressing this issue. A new visual simulated virtual world has been created where students now have to write control software to manipulate items within this virtual world. Access to the simulated world can either be through a computer terminal connected to the World Wide Web or through an application running on an Android platform. Together with an artificial intelligent tutoring platform the engagement of students with the virtual world is showing that students are crossing over to become programmers of note and no longer mere cookie-cutters.