Work In Progress: Reversi: A Platform for Teaching Programming Languages

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces a new set of infrastructures and online interactive tools that can be employed to motivate students to learn programming languages. The tools were used to experiment in one of the introductory first-year engineering courses. The final project of the course requires implementing an AI program for a game called “Reversi''. Reversi is a medium to hard level programming project that has been used in the course for several years requiring an immediate restructuring. Furthermore, due to COVID-19 and the restriction of in-person teaching, it has been a challenge for educators to excite, support, and encourage students. The new infrastructure provided an interactive platform for the students to familiarize themselves with the Reversi game project. It also provided a leaderboard, an interactive scoreboard, allowing students to compete with their classmates. The tools can instantaneously synchronize to students' code submission to help students check their latest ranking among their classmates in real-time. This increased students' level of engagement and learning. In addition, it allowed students to collaborate with their fellow classmates and discuss their algorithms. The tools and platform developed can also be employed in other courses as well other programming games. The result from students' surveys and the active trend of the class online discussion forum indicates that the new online interactive system created a positive atmosphere and increased students' motivation in learning programming languages. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.