Teaching computer programming: Practices, difficulties and opportunities

It is highly recognized that difficulties involved in teaching programming in an introductory course, arise from the cognitive process complexity that is necessary for developing this ability. Previous studies on the best first programming language or the best first programming paradigm have been conducted. Even, the most appropriate integrated development environment (IDE) for novice programmers has been inquired, and the most appropriate problem solving strategy to teach to write computable solutions has been researched. From the investigation in a sample of Bogota universities, and from a holistic perspective, this paper presents an overview of the most common practices and difficulties in teaching these courses, providing important information to help diagnose possible weaknesses in the current process of teaching as well as providing some elements to consider in the design of new strategies, resources and planning criteria for these formative scenarios.