Allen, J. M., & Vahid, F. (2020, June), Teaching Coral before C++ in a CS1 Course  Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--35273

\bibitem{asee_peer_35273}
  Allen, J. M., \& Vahid, F. (2020, June), \emph{Teaching Coral before C++ in a CS1 Course}
  Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line .
  10.18260/1-2--35273

Joe Michael Allen and Frank Vahid.  "Teaching Coral before C++ in a CS1 Course".  2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line , 2020, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2020.  https://peer.asee.org/35273 Internet.  28 Jan, 2025

\bibitem{asee_peer_35273}
  Joe Michael Allen and Frank Vahid.
  "Teaching Coral before C++ in a CS1 Course".
  \emph{2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line , 2020, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2020.
  https://peer.asee.org/35273 Internet.  28 Jan, 2025

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_35273
author = "Joe Michael Allen and Frank Vahid"
title = "Teaching Coral before C++ in a CS1 Course"
booktitle = "2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access"
year = "2020"
month = "June"
address = "Virtual On line "
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/35273}
number = {10.18260/1-2--35273}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Commercial languages like Python, Java, or C++, have syntactic, semantic, and
compiler/interpreter issues that make them less-than-ideal as a CS1 language. The free Coral
language, which uses ultra-simple statements, auto-derived flowcharts, and a web-based
graphical educational simulator with clear error messages, was developed in 2017 to address
such issues. Coral is designed to lead more directly into commercial languages than other
educational languages like Scratch or Snap. Dozens of schools use Coral, often as the language
in CS0 courses. In this work, we experimented with using Coral in CS1 to ease students into the
commercial language C++. For one 80-student CS1 section, the term's first half used Coral to
teach input/output, variables, expressions, branches, loops, arrays, and functions, thus focusing
on program logic and problem solving rather than syntax and semantic details. The term's second
half then retaught those constructs using C++. We found what we'd hoped: the Coral-to-C++
students did equally well on the identical C++ final exam and did equally well in the course. The
results suggest that instructors can start a CS1 class with Coral to enable a smooth start and to
teach using an educational simulator, without loss in learning outcomes or programming
capability. We indicate ideas of how Coral's introduction can be improved, which may yield
further improvements.
AU  - Joe Michael Allen
AU  - Frank Vahid
CY  - Virtual On line 
DA  - 2020/06/22
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Teaching Coral before C++ in a CS1 Course
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/35273
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--35273
ER  -