Browsing by Author "Govender, Thamotharan Prinavin."

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Cooperative learning technique for teaching object oriented programming.
(2013) Govender, Thamotharan Prinavin.; Govender, Desmond Wesley.
IT teaching strategies are unable to keep abreast of the ever-changing programming paradigms, programming languages and versions of software suites that are often “technologically hardware dependant” and costly to implement. Faced with ever increasing class sizes, lecture workloads and diminishing monetary resources coupled with reducing throughput rates in programming courses; IT educators are faced with challenges when teaching programming. The issue here maybe to move away from teacher centred learning to student centred learning. Pair Programming offers educators an opportunity to further enhance student centred learning. This study conducted an empirical study of “pair programming” in the teaching and learning of an introductory programming course in computer science with input from educators and learners. The purpose was to determine how a cooperative learning model can be used as a pedagogic tool for effective teaching and learning in a programming course. The study attempted to determine the impact of collaborative pair programming on students and whether IT educators can use pair programming as a teaching strategy. There was a pre-test for students to secure data and on how students attempted programming tasks. Thereafter pair-programming was implemented and a post-test was administered to determine the effectiveness of the intervention strategy. The research findings indicated that the educators and learners had a positive attitude towards the use of pair programming to support teaching and learning.
An exploration of the teaching and learning of Information Technology (IT) programming in a higher education institution in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN)
(2019) Govender, Thamotharan Prinavin.; Mudaly, Vimolan.
In this study, classic grounded theory, threshold concepts, self-study and practitioner research capture the processes of Information Technology (IT) academics who teach computer programming to first-year IT students at a university of technology in Kwa-Zulu Natal. The qualitative data analysis revealed the basic pedagogy of teaching and learning computer programming, and described how IT academics perceived their vocation and their decisions to take action to ultimately improve the quality of teaching and learning of IT programming. From the data, the following four themes emerged in the process of teaching and learning computer programming: 1) Teaching IT; 2) Learning IT and its impact; 3) Challenges in teaching IT; 4) Recommendations for teaching IT programming. This study will assist first-year IT programming academics to understand their pedagogical impact at an institution of higher learning. This study will further potentially serve as a path for future research and aid in understanding the pedagogical impact of the teaching and learning of IT on first-year IT students.