Plans, Object Design, and the
Web Plan Object Language (WPOL)

Christina Schweikert, Ph.D.
The City University of New York - Graduate Center

• Despite various enhancements in programming languages, environments, and pedagogical approaches, novices are still faced with many challenges when learning to program, particularly the additional layers of abstraction presented by OOP.
  
  
• Computer science departments in universities worldwide are in a crisis of high dropout and failure rates, as well as low enrollment in computer science courses.
  
  
• This work seeks to capture the way expert programmers represent programming knowledge and visualize this knowledge for novices to enhance their learning of programming in the object oriented paradigm. It has been shown that experienced programmers utilize plan representations to encode programming concepts and tasks. Studies of novice programmers reveal that most major errors are a result of incorrect plan integration and misconceptions related to objects, such as correct object representation and incorporation of OOP concepts into problem solving.
  
  
• A Plan-Object learning paradigm that reinforces concepts of object design through plan representation can aid students’ ability to design and implement objects, as well as increase their ability to utilize objects into problem solving. Web Plan Object Language (WPOL) is an online learning environment that utilizes the Plan-Object approach with three phases of learning: plan observation, integration, and creation.