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OCR
3.3 SUGGESTED SYLLABUS 37 — Students "are listening to" several loop skeletons while they keep their eyes on the slow-motion running of the program generated by the code creator module. It would be useful to analyse the following loop skeletons (see Figure 3.5). — Students are asked to recognize some unknown loop skeletons only by hearing their “piano accompaniment”. — Students are following, with their eyes and ears, the running of some well-known basic algorithms in the dialogue box of the run_code module. For example, how does a searching algorithm sound? And what about a sorting algorithm? If, for instance, students remember the sound pattern of sorting algorithms, they would not try to create a single loop. — Students are listening to the ‘piano accompaniment” of the algorithm for different inputs. — Students are asked to “drum in” divers loop skeletons. This is a very important stage of the syllabus. As the pupils in New Mexico schools feel the fractions in their bones due to the music and dance, our students should get to the point where the rhythm of algorithms rings in them. They reach this stage as a result of using their fingers in the manner of a pianist to “type” again and again the loop skeleton of the different algorithms. This phase of the method can be applied even if no computers are accessible. Firstly, the teacher and then the students can “drum” the rhythm of the loop skeletons, using their hands and legs. — Algorithms may contain typical errors. Students are asked to compare the wrong sound sequences with the “piano accompaniment” of the correct algorithms. — A certain loop skeleton is selected, and problems with the respective skeleton are analysed. Students are also asked to suggest adequate problems (preferably real-word problems). Han Figure 3.5. Loop skeletons
