Our Project.

Practicum is an interactive, web-based tool that teaches introductory CS topics. Its purpose is to provide a quick and easy way to practice basic computer science concepts, such as if statements and for loops. Practicum's goal is to supplement classroom learning or provide a refresher to students who have not coded in a while, not teach these concepts on its own.

Practicum's strength comes from the Thought Process Language (TPL) framework which automatically generates a guide that walks the user through any problem provided to the system. This sets Practicum apart by allowing it to generate instructive material procedurally rather than needing to manually write and input all of the prompts that a user will see. Practicum is easy to expand as it will do the bulk of the work in creating more instructional material. It also makes the process of encoding problem-solving strategies relatively simple and efficient.

Practicum allows students to take a guided walk through problems that highlight challenging new CS concepts to better understand how these concepts work in a practical setting. Our hope is that this will reinforce their classroom learning and leave them better prepared to apply this new material in their own code.