A flexible and systematic teaching framework to develop cognitive skills through programming courses

Computer programming has become an increasingly cross-cutting theme and is no longer considered just a specialized subject. In some countries, the inclusion of this subject in the curricula of the basic cycles of their educational systems has been provided for, because it is recognized that programming promotes computational thinking which allows cognitive development of students. In Chile, the Universidad de La Frontera established that an initial programming course is given to all the Engineering degrees. Unfortunately, studies have shown that students are not achieving the competencies defined by the computational thinking approach. This research paper presents a flexible and systematic teaching framework for developing cognitive skills in programming courses. This framework considers the use of a systematic methodology of teaching programming, which focuses on the process of building solutions over the product; using electronic programmable devices; and sets of pre-defined exercises appropriate to various domains of the engineering area.