Teaching Students to Implement Algorithms. Jodrey

This paper presents a new approach to teaching algorithms, in which an algorithm is explained using a hierarchy of abstractions. Each abstraction is designed to focus on a single operation , which is used directly or indirectly in the representation of the Data Type, an associated visualization, and a representation of using the Abstract Data Type. All abstractions form a tree, rooted at the abstraction representing the algorithm. Primitive operations that do not have the representations in any abstraction are associated with an abstract implementation. The latter implementation can be used to represent primitive operations in various programming languages. This approach makes it possible to teach students not only how and why algorithms work, but also to provide them with generic implementations to teach them how to implement algorithms. The application of this approach is demonstrated on the selection sort